May 9, 2018
CIBUS Day 2
We were up, had a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant, and on our was to CIBUS by 9 am. It was another busy days for the helicopters as they were taking off and landing with the same fury as yesterday. The spring storm from late night had a good amount of clouds left over and it looked like we might have some more shower activity today.
We walked in from the opposite end of our entry yesterday and found ourselves at the Levoni booth immediately after entering building 2 showcasing meat and dairy. The booth was busy with a large sales force present to handle questions and do business.
We were greeted by Simone Roccuzzo and Alberto Morandi of Levoni, who are based in Connecticut but were here working the show. They sat us down and began serving us samples of Salame, Mortadella, Prosciutto, and Focaccia sandwiches.
They saved the best for last. They brought out a completely new product which they debuted at CIBUS, Speck di Prosciutto. It is a cross of Proscuitto and Speck, the Tyrolean, Austrian, German style boned ham which is cured, smoked, and then aged. We fell in love upon the very first taste. We ordered it at the show for sale at Corti Brothers making us one of the first in the U.S. to offer it.
After we finished up at the Levoni booth, we walked through the rest of Building 2 which housed meat and dairy.
Darrell had us stop to taste some 'nduga produced by L'artigiano della 'nduga. 'nduga is a spicy, spreadable pork salumi from Italy. It is typically made with parts of the shoulder and belly, as well as tripe, roasted peppers and a mixture of spices. L'artigiano della 'nduga islocated in the province of Calabria literally at the top of the foot of the boot.
Since one couldn't possibly attend an Italian food show featuring meats without coming across some porchetta, here is the first example we saw of this wonderful savory, fatty, and moist stuffed, rolled boneless pork roast, which is slow cooked. We were not disappointed.
We can across a broker who was offering some products from Sardinia. Most specifically they had the authentic Sardinian bottarga which Corti Brothers offered when it first became available in the U.S. Sardinian Bottarga is a delicacy of salted, cured fish roe sacks, of grey mullet. The roe sacks are salted and dried and massaged to remove air pockets then dried after being pressed between boards. It is know as Sardinian caviar.
We met up with Osvaldo and Cecilia Longo at a booth by a company called Upstream who produce some of the best smoked and cured salmon on the planet.
We were greeted by the owner Claudio Cerati, who began this venture by home smoking salmon which turned into this amazing company. Upstrean fishes its salmon from the pristine waters surrounding the Faroe Islands, situated between Iceland and Scotland.
A Chef's demo caught Darrell's eye as we were working our way through the rest of the dairy booths. They were cooking for Eurovo a large, high quality Italian egg producer. They had just announced that they were going to make a spinach frittata with fried egg yolk, so we watched the whole process from start to finish. We were presented with the first three samples when the chef was done. They were absolutely delicious. You can see the process in the video below. www.eurovo.com
We had a good 25 minute break when the frittata went into the oven, so we meandered around the neighboring booths. Across the way, we came across what I thought was a brilliant idea- Soft Serve Tiramisu! The Il Tiramisu Mee Soo company developed a soft serve tiramisu, which they call il Tiramisù Espresso, and were making small samples. We watched them make some, and then had to try. They werereally good. I can see these machines and this system taking root back home. Keep your eyes out! They were so good, I had to have two.
Next, we made our way through the Grocery building.
We passed by the Longo booth and Osvaldo wanted us to try some very unique Sicilian salumi products made by Salumificio il Chiaramontano located in the south east of Sicily in the town of Ragusa. The most unique thing was Mortadella d'Asino. Asino in Italian means Donkey. Now before anyone utters a sigh, or worse, you have to realize this stems directly from tradition and necessity. They use Ragusa Donkeys which are specially raised and well treated. The mortadella was very silky and really good.
Time was passing very fast as it was now 4:30pm. We were walking through the Grocery, Confectionery, and Bakery building when a gentleman approached Darrell and said "Darrell Corti, do you remember me?" The gentleman's name was Mattia Pariani who is the CEO of the Pariani company. Darrell remembered him and he showed us the way into his display booth. Pariani is a leader in very high quality candied fruits, extracts, and nuts specializing in Hazelnuts for Piemonte and Pistachios from Sicily. Mattia lavished a good number of samples on us all of which were as good as it gets. We placed orders for the Piemonte P.G.I. hazelnuts, candied Cantiano cherries, citron peel, orange peel, lemon peel, semi- candied elderberries, and wild strawberries.
We spent a solid hour with Mattia Pariani and finished up about 5:30pm. The show was winding down for the day so we left Mattia and made our way through a few of the buildings before heading back to the car.
We arrived back at our hotel around 6:30pm. We each returned to our rooms to wind down before dinner.Darrell was intrigued by the listing that the hotel restaurant chef was Indian and that there was a Tandoori Chicken dish on the menu, so he decided to eat at the hotel restaurant. We met at the restaurant at 7:30pm. We were served gnocco fritto, a traditional fried bread dough of the Emilia Romagna, right after we sat down. Darrell order wine, which came to the table quickly.
I have only posted pictures of the wine , bread, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and risotto, as they were the the only good things were were served. This meal was our only food disappointment of our entire trip. The first wine which came out was oxidized, so the waiter brought out a second. It was also oxidized, so Darrell opted for another wine. The gnocco fritto were not good at all seeming to have been fried in oil which was either not filtered properly, or left to fry too long before being changed out. We all ordered the Tandoori Chicken dish, which was not even close to Tandoori. The chicken was dry and not very tasty. The risotto was the only thing properly prepared. We later learned that the kitchen had been "farmed out" to another company, so the doesn't have direct control of the chef. Time for bed!