Al Vedel restaurant, Colorno (Parma)

[albiston]

Two and a half weeks ago I was driving through the Austrian-Italian border in direction of Parma, the first stop of my short Italy vacation. Parma might not have the best of reputations as restaurant destination in Italy today, maybe because of conservative taste of the local restaurant customers, yet Italian cuisine would worse off without the hearty local cuisine and its delicious products. Could you imagine Italy without Parmigiano or Prosciutto di Parma?

Parma and its province, together with the nearby provinces of Modena and Piacenza, are definitely one of the highlights for the Italian salumi lover. Apart Prosciutto di Parma DOP, there's a whole variety of salumi coming from this little piece of foggy Pianura Padana: salame felino, aka salame gentile, salame strolghino, pancetta, coppa, spalla cruda and cotta, cotechino, zampone, cappello del prete, fiocchetto and what is considered the king of Italian salumi, Culatello di Zibello DOP.

Enter Ore: I knew he was in Colorno, near Parma, learning to make salumi at Al Vedel, one of the only 14 producers of Culatello di Zibello DOP. I finally would get a chance to see what he had been up to after finishing the Slow Food Master in Italian Cooking and his stage in Nusco, so captivatingly described in his Slow Food Italian diary. So, instead of stopping in Parma for dinner, I had long decided to drive those extra 30 km to Colorno to have a taste of deliciously cured pork at Al Vedel. Before the actual gustatory experience Ore was kind to give me and my father, who was in Parma for work, a tour of the salumi making facility.

Walking through the various aging and working spaces did sure have an appetite stimulating effect.

Pancetta getting in shape,

and Salame Gentile served as a sort of appetizer before the "main item" of the tour: Culatello.

But let's get back to the salumi king. Why does Culatello di Zibello deserve the title of king among Italian salumi? The simplest way to explain this is to take a slice of Culatello on a buttered slice of bread: the taste alone should be enough to convince you. It sure convinced me. Thanks to the choice of meat, its preparation and its aging, first in dry then moist rooms, Culatello is a deliciously mellow, sweet yet aromatic cured meat. It's usually aged 12 to 14 months minimum but older Culatelli are even more seducing. Add to this the fact that to make a Culatello you have to waste a Prosciutto, and you'll have a further economic reason to name this salume king.

Ore showed us the main preparation steps of culatello. I'll sum them up here, hoping to have caught all the important details (in case Ore, feel free to correct my mistakes). The production rules for the protected denomination of origin (D.O.P.) Culatello require that the meat has to be worked still warm from the slaughterhouse. For this reason the day of the Culatelo maker starts early: as soon as the pork legs arrive in the morning, they're skinned, deboned and trimmed. The trimming will give the meat for Culatello, the buttock plus part of the leg, the fiocchetto which will be cured in a similar way to Culatello, but aged for a shorter time, and a few trimmings which will end up in Salame Strolghino, a lean, delicate and delicious salame usually eaten young.

Above just a few finished fiocchetti... the waste of Culatello!

At this stage the Culatelli are salted with a mixture of rock salt, crushed pepper and eventually garlic and/or white wine (both not used at Al Vedel), the salt is vigorously rubbed on the meat which then rests from one to six days in a refrigerated room room, as shown in the picture above. Once the salting stage is over the meat is placed into a pig's bladder and shaped in the characteristic pear form, and then tied tightly to avoid the formation of air pockets which would spoil the product.

Just tied up:

After a little time the first molds start appearing and the culatelli are ready to move to their final aging room.

At Al Vedel this is a special cellar under which, according to the owners (Ore seemed a bit doubtful about this) a subterranean river flows, producing the moist environment needed to properly age Culatello di Zibello. The cellar of Al Vedel is absolutely spectacular: rows after rows of culatelli some still ageing, some ready for sale with their characteristic label in evidence.

A picture of the aging culatelli made using the flash,

a more blurred, yet more impressive one, without,

and a sale-ready Culatello di Zibello.

After our tour we moved to the dining room not without noticing the impressive "elephant graveyard" of some of the best bottles emptied from Al Vedel's quite impressive wine list, from which we "only " picked two half bottles: a Pinot Grigio from Livio Felluga and a Bricco dell'Uccellone Barbera d'Asti from Braida.

The menu is well priced (tasting menu at around 35-40 €), and includes both regional classics and somewhat more creative dishes. Our meal was pleasant, with the classic dishes winning above the creative ones, with a few real stunners. On the evening we were there a 40 month's old Culatello had been just opened, so I could hardly avoid ordering the Culatello di Zibello tasting as entree: 16, 22 and 40 month old Culatelli, served, as tradition wants, with butter and fresh bread. Going from younger to older the sweet gentle taste acquired more earthy notes and the aroma turned from pleasantly mellow to complex and rich. As the chef would tell us later, some of the local customers, used to mellower tastes, found the 40 months Culatello too strong, something I completely disagree upon: those two slices of aged pork buttock were the highlight of the dish if not the whole meal. No better way to start the evening. A just OK lamb ragu filled spinach crepe served with Stilton sauce, and a good cotechino, Al Vedel's production clearly, on top of mashed potatoes plus a little sweet Moscato zabaione (to offer a little unusual twist) followed. The Chickmagalur Karnataka coffee mousse with chocolate ganache I ordered to close the meal was very well made and one of the best desserts I ate during this short trip, even in more highly reputed places.

Throughout the evening the service did not miss a beat, although it was Saturday evening and every single table was seated: always helpful and friendly, contributing to the pleasantness of the evening in a determining way. Bravo to them. It's a mystery to me how the only Italian guide noticing Al Vedel is the Michelin one, which awarded this restaurant a bib gourmand. I wonder if Gambero Rosso and Espresso are sleeping when it comes to Emilia Romagna.

If I'm ever around Parma again I will definitely return to Al Vedel... with a cab. I do plan to get to know that impressive wine list better after all .

[Kevin72]

Ore's definitely living the dream, isn't he?

I'd love to pack a suitcase full of elastic waistband pants and spend a few weeks in Emilia-Romagna.

Where else did you wind up going on your trip?

[albiston]

Ore's definitely living the dream, isn't he? 

I'd love to pack a suitcase full of elastic waistband pants and spend a few weeks in Emilia-Romagna. 

Where else did you wind up going on your trip?

←

You should ask Ore if he feels like living in a dream. Let's just say Al Vedel is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Apart making salumi there's not exactly that much to do I guess. Right Ore?

The rest of the trip is coming up, with a few nice meals to talk about. I didn't see much of Emilia Romagna though: five of my eight days, excluding travel and a stop in Munich to see some friends, there were spent doing a short stage in a restaurant's kitchen, but that story might have to wait a bit for the moment.

[Kevin72]

Except Ore keeps popping up in all these great threads! Must be doing something right!

You've got quite a backlog of stories you're dangling in front of us . . . first the maggot cheese story and now a restaurant short stage?

[albiston]

Except Ore keeps popping up in all these great threads!  Must be doing something right!

You've got quite a backlog of stories you're dangling in front of us . . . first the maggot cheese story and now a restaurant short stage?

←

I had completely forgotten about the maggot cheese!

I'll have to start a thread about "pushing your gastronomic limits in Italy" very soon. Plus I have a new little extra story to add there, so maybe my waiting to write that story up has at least one advantage.

I'll just wait after Easter: I wouldn't want to hurt anyone's sensibility .

[cinghiale]

Excellent post, right down to the each mouth-watering detail. Thanks, Alberto.

One Q: When you said "...and eventually garlic and/or white wine (both not used at Al Vedel)", did you mean eventuell, as in "possibly" or "occasionally", or is it customary to include garlic and wine but Al Vedel chooses not to?

[albiston]

Excellent post, right down to the each mouth-watering detail.  Thanks, Alberto.

One Q:  When you said "...and eventually garlic and/or white wine (both not used at Al Vedel)", did you mean eventuell, as in "possibly" or "occasionally", or is it customary to include garlic and wine but Al Vedel chooses not to?

←

As in possibly. The rules of the Culatello di Zibello consortium leave the option wheather to use these two ingredients open to the personal preferences of the producers. I think Ore mentioned that garlic might be used to prepare the bladder casing, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

[marons]

The Touring Club of Italy has a book on Parma which lists Al Vedel. They give it 1 fork, which is good--I have used their recommendations with sucess all over Italy. I will be in Emilia-Romagna for a week in late May, staying in Parma and I expect to get to AL Vedel.

Mike Arons

[Ore]

You should ask Ore if he feels like living in a dream. Let's just say Al Vedel is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Apart making salumi there's not exactly that much to do I guess. Right Ore?

Al Vedel trully has been a dream. I have taken on such a new direction culinarily with the artigianal art of salumi making, the way we make it here. I am actually sad to leave this wonderful place.

If you read my blog, you can see that the people here are soooooo nice. The other week we took two days off to go to tuscany and drink wine. The week before it was a michelin starred restaurant for lunch, the week before, the weekend off for florence and enoteca pinchiorri, then the next weekend off for dinner with Alberto and a meal at Dal Pescatore.

What I have learned here I hope I can bring mback to the US with me...I will be back soon...mid May 2005...so watch out!!

About the GARLIC AND WINE...

If Alberto says it is part of the guidelines, then I trust him. We dont use any of it directly on our culatello in any way. When placing the pork bladders in water, to re-hydrate, we may add some vinegar, crushed whole garlic cloves, and white wine to the water, for a bit of aroma, but it is never directly placed on the meat.

The bladders smell so bad that you need the wine and vinegar just to work in the smae room with the stuff...but that is what it's all about when you are making the REAL STUFF...

I hope my ventures in Los Angeles or it's area will yield close to the same results! Anyone looking for a dishwasher!?!

Ciao,

Ore