We Were All Food Poisoned!

Although my trip to Italy, so far, has been fantastic, blog posts about how beautiful everything is, how great the food tastes, and how wonderful the people will get boring very quickly. So, I'm writing about something a little less pleasant.

Throughout the year, we have about seven weeks worth of trips to various regions; they call these trips "stages" (pronounced stahj, its French), and they are intended to be food and culture safaris: the time to eat, drink, experience a new region of Europe, and learn by doing.

Our first trip took place almost two weeks ago, and they took us to Puglia, the heel of the boot that is Italy. The place was beautiful: we walked through ancient groves of olive trees, swam in cool water while gazing out towards a hazy sea, and we drank Prosecco in a hilltop town, sitting in an outdoor cafe with a view of the rolling, golden valley, feeling the warm breeze rush over us. I'll never forget these moments, but I'll also remember the trip as a death-march of cold cuts.

Every meal was a big occasion: multiple courses of meats, cheeses, pasta, more meat. Often, lunch looked the same: cured meat, cheese, bread, wine, and lardo (cured pork fat). One night, we ate seafood: fish salad, raw fish, fish with homemade pasta, fried fish, and then fruit and dessert. The next night: appetizers of fried dough, focaccia with greens, frittata, cured meats, two kinds of homemade pasta, stewed horse, boiled octopus, and then fruit and dessert. And the whole time, the wine kept coming.

Halfway through the trip, we all felt like our systems couldn't keep up with this much food and wine. We ate prunes and yogurt for breakfast. Some sought out fresh fruit; I bought myself some tomatoes. It didn't seem to be working. We all felt slow, lethargic; I imagined myself to be getting gout.



Something had to give. The center could not hold. On the last day we broke down. Two of the girls got sick early in the morning: they looked pale, droopy, and very unhappy. In two hours they fell into vomiting, and we altered course. Our trip leader, Alessandra, took us to a beachtown, set us free to wander for the afternoon, and got these poor girls a hotel room.

I fell victim next. Thinking I was just a little hungover, I decided to go for a swim, which usually helps me feel better. I swam for a while and then sprawled out on the beach to sunbathe. It must have been funny to the friends I was with, because it looked like I was having a great time, and all of a sudden, on the walk back into town, I bent over the railing of the staircase and barfed my guts out into the creek below. After my second puke, Alessandra took me to the hotel room with the other girls, and I took my place with the fallen.

Over the course of the next two days, at least a quarter of us became acutely ill; and almost everyone got queasy stomaches, headaches, and a general malaise. The weekend we got back, everyone hibernated in their rooms. Some fasted, others caught up on fruits and vegetables. For a day and a half, all I could keep down was white rice and gatorade.

But now we're all better, and the next stage starts on Monday. Studying food is intense.

Wine Doesn't Smell Like Wine

Not long ago, I did some tasting with some good friends. We were discussing the smells and the tastes in the wines, nothing too serious or over the top. One of my friends, a free-thinker, stopped us, and suggested that the wine just smells like wine. No one had an answer for him, until now.
Just last week we had a two day sensory analysis unit here at Cheese School. Our professor had prepared twenty six "standard" aromas that we all had to identify. These standards were compounds mixed into a base wine, or simply the smelly thing itself, like chunks of butter, caramel, or bubble gum. It didn't take long for us to figure out what all this stuff was: asparagus juice, black pepper, nutmeg, olive, honey, lemon, raspberry, etc...
Trying to guess smells can dislodge lots of memories. You have to close your eyes, picture what the smell reminds you of, and then unpack the memory to isolate what it is you smelled and are now remembering. It's a fun way to make your brain work. After smelling a standard for "artificial fruit flavor", I couldn't guess what the smell was supposed to be, but got stuck on images of drinking juice boxes and eating popsicles as a kid. After smelling soy sauce mixed with base wine, I could distinctly remember drinking red wine that smelled just like this, but I had never identified the aroma. I drove myself crazy trying to name the smell and never figured out that it was soy.




After identifying the standards, we were asked to analyze real wines. Four whites on the first day and four reds on the next. Lo and behold, some of the wines smelled exactly like the standards we had identified. One white was a dead ringer for asparagus, another had distinctive bell pepper and green bean aromas. The reds were a little harder to pinpoint, but the descriptors we used showed consistent trends. One red had vanilla and caramel while others had fresh berry and spice or soy sauce and leather.
The lesson learned: the aromas in wine are a real thing. Volatile compounds exist in wine that create specific smells. Winemakers can use sensory analysis to adjust their winemaking techniques to avoid making wines that smell like green beans and olives. More importantly, smelling wine all day is a very, very good use of time.

ps. Thanks to Raymond for his pictures!

Cicliturismo!

Bit by bit, I am doing everything I came to Italy to do. Yesterday I bought a bike, and it's beautiful: an old, blue Colnago in absolutely perfect shape. It has a steel frame, yellow handlebars, and Campagnolo components. It is exactly the bike I imagined myself riding here.

I couldn't imagine how perfect Piemonte is for cycling. We are surrounded by rolling hills that are packed with vineyards and Hazelnut groves and studded with hilltop villages. On a bike, you could spend all day exploring, visiting dozens of towns and wine DOC's without riding more than 25 miles from the home base. I am determined to see it all.