Riding along in an automobile...

Tired of lugging our backpacks around; banging into people, nursing them like an infant, meticulously packing them and frankly being weighed down by them, we took the un-backpacker path of hiring a car whilst we were in Italy. So we embarked on a one week road trip through the heart of Italy. The two regions our time predominated in were Tuscany and Umbria. They are both renowned, the world over, for their culinary prowess. Proud producers of excellent wines, small goods and the infamous and elusive truffle to name a few.

Typical Tuscan home

But before I bore you with stories of our gluttony, may I highlight the basic fact of driving on the other side of the road? Mentally, becoming accustomed to the sight of trafffic on the 'wrong' side of the road isn't all that hard. What is hard is sheer depth perception. And physically driving the car and sitting on the 'wrong' side is very hard to get used to. Picture wind screen wipers working overtime instead of indicating; not to mention extending my left hand down for the gears only for it to be fumbling the door handle. Did I mention foreign road signs? 

'...my baby beside at the wheel'

Driving acclimatisation aside, we arrived safely at our first destination and were greeted to what would be the first of many out-of-this-world meals over the course of the week. With an appetizer of truffle dip on bread, we knew we were in for a delight. With the nervousness gone after losing my truffle virginity, I was left to ponder and decrypt the new and unique truffle flavours badgering my palate. Truffle, a member of the fungus family, has such a depth of flavour that only a small amount penetrates the entire dish and leaves your taste buds in no doubt that its esteem is equal to its flavour. Our secondi piatti, main course, consisted of home made ravioli with you-can't-go-wrong-wow burnt butter and sage sauce. To say the ravioli were the best of our short lives is an understatement. As keen ravioli makers back home, we seriously found the sheer gulf in class so profound that we were left with childish smiles for the remainder of the evening. 

Tartufo crostini - yum!

The following day along with the assistance of our Smart car we traversed the rolling and often severe Tuscan hills. With many cyclists around Jay was left severely jealous and vowed to return someday with his bike in tow. Sweeping his jealously aside, we sat down to a meal laden with truffles. Truffle sauce on fresh pasta. All for the princely sum of $20.

More truffle than sense!

As relative vino, wine, novices we were nervous in our excitement at visiting the plethora of vineyards throughout Umbria. We arrived at our first vineyard, a 'family run' establishment. After navigating the small surrounds we were greeted by a genial man. With our Italian lacking, he quickly sought the aid of his receptionist who conveniently spoke near perfect English. For the next two hours the receptionist proceeded to give us a tour of the vineyard, factory and followed the enlightening tour with some fantastic and heavy handed tastings. Also there were complimentary, home made, biscotti. At least 3 red and whites to try and some bread and olive oil too. As Jay was driving he had to be steadfast albeit reluctantly in his insistence on smaller tastings. Julia on the other hand must have benefited from Jay's dilemma as her tastings were nearer to half a glass of wine. Not to mention her slurred words and lop sided walk back to the car! Aside from the delicious wine, friendly and personal tour we were quick shocked to find that the whole experience was FREE!

The ubiquitous olive groves that so strikingly hug the hills of Umbria are also the source of some excellent olive oil. Needless to say we didn’t need any extra encouragement to visit a local oil producer and taste some of their products. Excitedly, we pulled up and with broken Italian relayed our intentions to taste some of their oils. We were taken to the showroom and introduced to three large bottles of oil. Even more excited now, eagerly, we watched as small shot glasses of olive oil were poured. Expecting bread to dip in the oil we were quite surprised when none arrived and we were encouraged to drink the oil straight from the shot glasses. Not wanting to offend, we both sculled our shots of oil. Unsurprisingly, we also both gagged and almost vomited the oil back up. I’m not sure if you have ever attempted to drink straight oil but it very quickly initiates an innate human reflex called the gag reflex. It's also disgusting and near impossible to gauge the taste of the oil as you suppress a gag and will it down your throat. Dismayed at our experience we watched in horror as she quickly poured us another glass. This time we knew what to expect but it didn’t make it any easier and we both edged even closer to purging. As the assistant grappled with some scissors to open a fresh bottle for our final tasting we quickly, masked by politeness, told her not to worry about opening another bottle. Relieved we said our grazies and made our way to the car. Once we scampered back to the car and shut the doors we desperately searched for anything at all to eat or drink that would take our minds of the revolting sensation still with us.

Olive groves

Arriving at our next winery we were told we had to wait for 1 hour before the next tour would run. Unperturbed, we began to chat to the lady assisting us. She happened to be from Sydney and incidentally spoke perfect English. Unable to contain our shock horror involving our recent olive oil tastings, we quickly told her of our somewhat hilarious experience. She began to laugh and taught us the correct 'technique' to taste olive oil. Quite simply it involves heating the oil and most importantly taking small sips at a time – genius!   

The final stop on our Tuscan & Umbrian roadtrip adventure was a small, tucked-away town called Norcia. The size of the town, which was no bigger than the MCG, belied its gastronomic culinary contribution to Italian cuisine. Not only is this town infamously known for its delectable cured meats – porchetta, wild boar and prosciutto to name a few examples – but it is also well known for the vast array of pecorino cheese (using sheep's milk) it produces. In fact, as mentioned in a previous blog, Norcia is so adept at producing small goods that an accomplished butcher in Italy is referred to as a norcino.

Norcia - a pig's dystopia

Delicious ricotta

Moreover, Norcia is most famous for producing the precious delicasy that is tartufo (truffle). Hunted by dogs (as opposed to pigs in France), this diamond of the culinary world is treasured by many and so rare and precious that it is worth $2000 per kilo in Australia. Because Norcia is uniquely home to this gem, you can purchase truffles in a variety of forms; oils, spreads, preserves and infusions. Not to mention that the local restaurants expertly incorporate the delicacy into their menus. Therefore, we felt obliged to honour this valuable ingredient and proceeded to order it in as many ways as was possible. Tartufo crustoni, tartufo pasta, tartufo mushroom & meat sauces and tartufo pizza were just some of the ways we enjoyed tartufo. And what made it even better was how economically feasible it was to try all of this tartufo; with prices ranging from 5 to 20 AUD per dish, we would have been crazy not to have tried them all!

Did someone say truffles?

Worst meal ever - not!

I mentioned earlier the vast array of cured meats produced in Norcia. A carnivore's paradise if you will. Of the variety of stores and restaurants that were open-for-business in Norcia, about 80% of these were delicatessens selling these carnal goodies. The unfortunate drawback of having a town filled with so many meat products was the smell which emanated from the goods and wafted its way onto the surrounding streets; a pungent, fleshly odour acting as a harsh reminder of the origins of these foods. With that thought aside, just about every time you walked into these said delis, a delightful tastings tray greeted you. Unfortunately for Jay, he reached his cured meats limit by the end of the third store, and couldn't stomach another sample of prosciutto for the rest of his time there. Julia on the other hand was reacquainted with her carnivore-within, and happily gnawed away at any dead pig and boar product which came her way..

A vegetarian's nightmare!!

It's fair to say then that dining in Norcia was a sheer and utter delight. Dining in this town epitomised gastronomic joy, and we took this factor extremely seriously, agreeing to divulge in as much food as was possible. We even agreed to ignore our budget for the couple of days we were there in order to properly dedicate ourselves to food. This meant being incredibly gluttonous for our entire stay there, though this was made easier by the fact that there wasn't really much else to do in this town other than eat!