La Grassa. The fat one. Bologna has earned its nickname like no other place on earth. The old city is awash in excess calories, a medieval fortress town fortified with golden mountains of starch and red cannons of animal fat, where pastas gleam a brilliant yellow from the lavish amount of egg yolks they contain and menus moan under the weight of their meat- and cheese-burdened offerings.
I long dreamt of nuzzling up to Bologna’s ample waistline. As a high school kid with a burgeoning romance with the kitchen, I was hungry to consummate my love with what I regarded as the world’s finest cuisine. The intermediary was a young, heavyset Italian-American named Mario Batali. Every morning at 10:30 during summer break, I sunk into our Chianti-red couch and watched the chef with orange clogs and a matching cheddar ponytail motormouth his way across Italy, breaking down the regional cooking of the country in exquisite three-plate daily tasting menus. I wanted to taste the swollen breads of Puglia, the neon green pestos of Liguria, the simmering fish stews of Le Marche. The pepper-bombed pastas of Lazio. But above all, I wanted to feast on the Italy of Molto Mario’s most spirited episodes, the Italy of Parmigiano (“the undisputed king of cheeses!”), of mortadella andculatello, and, of course, the Italy of ragù alla bolognese, the most lavish and revered of all pasta creations.
It took a broken heart to bring me to Bologna’s bulging belly. I fell in love with a girl in Barcelona who didn’t share my lofty feelings, so I escaped to Bologna to drown my rejection in a bottomless bowl of meat sauce. For three weeks I sought out ragu in any form possible: caught in the tangles of fresh tagliatelle, plugging the tiny holes of cheesy tortellini, draped over forest green handkerchiefs of spinach lasagna.
Since the dawn of Christianity, Emilia Romagna—birthplace of ragu, home of the city of Bologna—has been one of Europe’s wealthiest regions, a center of trade with a heavy agricultural presence. Few things say wealth as loudly as a sauce comprised of three or four cuts of meat, two kinds of fat, wine, milk, and a flurry of one of the world’s most treasured cheeses—all served on a pasta so dense with egg yolk it looks a sunset run through a paper shredder.
Read the entire article here (and be very hungry for pasta!!!)
Love your articles Tom, thank you!!