A Journey To Understand the People and Places That Craft Italy’s Finest Foods
Words by David Dellanave | Photography by Roy Son
How does one describe Italy? You might call it historic, passionate and colorful, but the true essence of Italian culture is impossible to put into words. Italy isn’t just a place – it’s an experience. An attitude. It’s a way of being that values tradition, hospitality, and quality over quantity. Where the love of craft, from the soil to the final product, brings life to some of the world’s finest foods. I think only when experiencing authentic Italian foods can you get a real sense of the indescribable land and culture of this country.
As long as I can remember, I’ve had my feet planted in two worlds: one in the Midwest, and one in Italy, my place of birth – the place where I feel most at home. Throughout my life I have discovered more and more about what Italy has to offer, and there is nothing I enjoy more than sharing my Italian heritage with others. It’s a desire that eventually led me to start my own olive oil import business, purely by accident. Friends would ask me if they could purchase bottles I had imported from the same mill in Italy that my family has sourced from for over 20 years. Soon their friends would start buying from me, and their friend’s friends and so on, and in no time I developed a business selling thousands of bottles to people all across the country.
It’s been amazing to see my friends in America enjoy this staple of Italian culture, but it’s inspired me to want to share more than just single bottles of oil. For every amazing Italian flavor I’ve experienced throughout my life, I’ve gotten just as much satisfaction out of the relationships formed with the people who create them. Each one has a story to tell about going against the grain of greater efficiency, larger production and higher profit to preserve their unwavering standards and old traditions. I wanted to share those stories with the world and turn the spotlight on some of my favorite people and places that best represent the Italian way of life. So, I decided to plan a multi-stop motorcycle journey to visit some of the country’s finest food producers and create a documentary of the trip to share those stories with the world.
The country that gave us Leonardo da Vinci, pizza and espresso also gave us Ducati motorcycles. A machine built the Italian way, with the highest standards of quality and craftsmanship. It would be the perfect vessel for us to experience the Italian countryside in the most meaningful way. There’s something different you get when riding through a location rather than driving. You find yourself participating in the world you’re traveling through, rather than just being a spectator. You’re taking in the sights, the sounds, the smells and all the little things that engage your senses in ways you could never experience behind a windshield.
Joining me on this adventure was David Chang, a motorcycle enthusiast, journalist, and the man behind CROIG, a brand that has amassed over a million followers on social media. Chang lives and breathes all things motorcycles, so I figured he would be the perfect person to join me on this unique two-wheeled adventure and to help tell the story of the people, places and foods we would encounter along the way.
Our first stop of the trip was the quaint northwestern province of Cortemilia, hiding in the majestic Alta Langa region. Cortemilia may be small in population, but it has a created a big reputation across the globe for one unique thing: hazelnuts. Alongside grapes, hazelnuts play a very important role in the local agriculture here. The geography offers the perfect combination of soil, air temperature, moisture and proximity to the sea to create an incredible flavor and unmistakable aroma when expertly toasted.
During our time in Cortemilia, we toured an impressive operation where they process, toast and package these hazelnuts for shipments around the world. Each hazelnut is meticulously inspected for quality and toasted to the different levels and flavors requested by the individual buyers. We also visited a local bakery specializing in all things hazelnut, most famously their incredible hazelnut cake. We shared bites of this delectable treat as the chef explained his care for the product: “Our hazelnuts depend greatly on the soil where they are cultivated. The aroma comes directly from the soil, and I actually go out into the fields to select them myself.” Up until the early ’90s, hazelnuts were used exclusively on desserts like this cake, but thanks to a few world-class chefs in the region, their use has evolved to also be used in a variety of pastas, meats and savory dishes.
The following morning, David and I enjoyed a spectacular ride through the mountains of Alta Langa, eventually arriving in the town of Alba. This town is known for exquisite wines and one of the most elusive foods in the world: white truffles. Once a year, thousands of chefs and lovers of this valuable fungus descend upon this little town for the annual truffle fair. These rare truffles are sometimes located up to 50 inches underground and would be impossible to find if it weren’t for specialized dogs used to sniff them out. The tremendous difficulty in finding them creates an incredibly high price: One of the street vendors showed us a softball-sized truffle and told us it was worth over 5,000 euro.
As we made our way farther south toward Bologna, it would have been sacrilegious not to stop at the nearby Ducati factory. That’s where we met Claudio De Angeli, director of the Scrambler Ducati division. Claudio gave us a delightful tour of the facility and a lesson on the history of the brand. Like me, the Scrambler is an Italian export with American influence – once again confirming we were on the perfect machines for this particular adventure. As we continued chatting with Claudio, he eagerly recommended the next stop for us to take on this adventure –and he assured us that it would blow our minds.
What’s the longest you can imagine it taking to make a product? I don’t mean passive aging; I mean consistent application of work to produce an end product. A year to make a beer? Several years to grow an animal for slaughter? Well, I can’t think of anything that compares to the minimum of 25 years it takes to produce the traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena. Twenty-five separate grape harvests are meticulously aged and filtered through a series of barrels to produce a minuscule bottle – designed by renowned Italian automobile designer Giorgetto Giugaro, of course – containing just a few milliliters of a product that words are insufficient to describe. So, you can imagine my delight when the owner of this operation offered us a sample – plucked with a wine thief directly from the final cask of his grandfather’s battery – of a balsamic that has been in continuous production for over 52 years.
There is no shortcut to producing balsamic of this caliber. There’s no hack, more efficient method, or even viable way to skip the queue. The ingredients are nine parts patience and one part hope that you don’t make a grave mistake that ruins everything. To even attempt to describe the otherworldly flavor the process creates would be an injustice, so I won’t.
We continued on to our next destination, thoroughly enjoying all of the scenery and culture passing by. Our luck in riding in such perfect conditions eventually ran out as dark clouds rolled in and the heavy rains began, leaving us cold and ill-equipped. As each mile became more miserable and challenging, I came to view riding in this rain as an analogy for the struggle of the producers of these incredible Italian foods, who put in the long, slow, uncomfortable work year after year to make things that can only be done the hard way.
Eventually we found shelter for the evening at Azienda Agricola Clorofilla, a charming family-run agriturismo that we wouldn’t have known existed if it weren’t for the need to escape this storm. Agriturismi, or “agritourism” in English, generally operates like a bed and breakfast at a working farm, ranch, or agricultural plant to generate enjoyment for visitors and supplemental income for the owner. Just like in other countries, farming in Italy has been consolidating for decades. As it got harder to make ends meet as a small farmer, many were giving up completely. Access to this new way to diversify revenue and offset expenses resulted in a boom for small agricultural producers. They have been the saving grace of people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to continue to produce their goods.
The owners of this particular agriturismo explained to us the importance of the fruits of their land, and the traditions that they keep alive in their production. What they do and produce here is exceptional. But it’s also entirely unremarkable in the sense that there are thousands – roughly 20,000 as of 2019 – of agriturismi dotting the countryside of Italy. While it would be silly to vouch for all of them as being wonderful, should you land in one at random, the odds are pretty high that there will be something unique and remarkable about it.
After our heartwarming stay at Azienda Agricola Clorofilla, we made a pit stop to visit a very special orchard in the town of Macerata. Here they are working to revive some ancient varieties of fruits, such as sour black cherries and white fig. The fields where the fruit is plucked is located in the front yard of the owner’s house, where they prepare and package delicious preserves to sell to happy customers. One of their specialties is a 17th-century recipe where they patiently cook cherries in the sun for 40 days. It seems that everywhere we go in Italy, the culture honors patience and tradition above all else. And that desire to preserve the past and restore old traditions is also what inspires the folks who run this orchard.
From Macerata, our next and final destination would be my birth city, Assisi. But I had one more place that I wanted to make a quick stop at along the way. Norcia is one of my favorite little hamlets in Italy, and it is known throughout the world for two things: black truffles and salumi. In fall of 2016, a series of earthquakes devastated the town, leaving many of its ancient landmarks in ruins. After the disaster in Norcia, the town has barely hung on to its cultural heritage. So it feels even more important to stop in and support the local vendors of this beautiful city, because without continued support from tourism this town may disappear entirely.
Just outside of Assisi there is a very special patch of land that has become highly prized for the grapes grown within its boundaries. You can’t talk about the fine foods of Italy without addressing the wine, so we stopped by the Arnaldo Caprai winery, home to one of the families who discovered the magical potential of sagrantino grapes. The wine from these grapes didn’t gain notoriety or individuality until recently, but now thanks to vineyards like this one, they are considered to be one of the finest wines in the world. Its newfound popularity has created new streams of income and sustainability for the region, and is yet another testament to the quality of the land and soil in Italy.
This whole adventure had started back in the States, when my friends were gaining interest in olive oil and my accidental olive oil import business had begun. Many of my customers wanted to know more about where the oil came from, who makes it, and why it’s so special. So here we are, at the final stop of our motorcycle journey, to visit my old friend and olive oil miller, Luigi Tega – the genesis for this whole idea. I’ve been using Luigi’s olive oil in my kitchen since I was an elementary school kid, coming home from school and making myself bruschetta as an afternoon snack. I’ve always known that Luigi produced exceptional oil, but it wasn’t until this visit that I was able to really understand the depth of his commitment.
Everyone who produces any amount of oil in Italy proudly believes their oil is the best on Earth, and Luigi is no exception. These days, he is considered by many to be one of the finest millers in Italy, and his olive oils consistently garner top awards at international competitions. Pursuing the more difficult and “long way” of producing olive oil wasn’t a question for Luigi; it was just a matter of discarding the convenience of modern methods and investing massively in the future – with patience and old traditions.
Inside the mill is a hearth. The nights get cold during late fall, so a gentle fire is always burning. A miller’s work is done mostly at night. The olives harvested during the day are brought directly to the mill and must be milled immediately if the best-quality product is to be obtained. Years ago, in the upstairs area that is now a bed and breakfast run by Luigi’s sister, olives would be stored for a week to ten days so that fermentation would crack open the cells and relinquish every last bit of oil. “No one asked whether the oil was good or not; they instead wanted to know how much was extracted. It was the quantity that counted,” Luigi explains. But these days, his focus is on the quality.
During those crisp fall evenings, when the machines are whirring and humming from sunset to the wee hours of the morning, you can toast a piece of bread in the hearth, walk over to the decanter to capture a cup from the stream exiting the final step of the process, and pour olive oil that is just seconds old onto your bruschetta. That exact type of experience is what I craved to share on this journey, and if this documentary never saw the light of day, at least I knew the time we spent meeting people like Luigi would make this trip worthwhile.
We spent that final evening at another agriturismo outside of Assisi and gathered for yet another delicious rustic meal with family and friends. I was reflecting on my father, who kept me connected to my Italian roots. It was his knowledge, passion and history shared about where we came from that inspired my love for this incredible country. He taught me about that Italian desire to make things that are exceptional, and the ability to use resources that are readily available and cultivate delicacies craved by people around the world. I now realize that this is my inheritance, and like any good Italian, I want to share this gift with others.
