Friday, February 4, 2011

Mafiaoza's Part 2

The cheese plate was served with a small cup of honey.  We were so overwhelmed by the cheese cornucopia spread before us that we forgot which cheese the waiter recommended actually pairing with the honey, so we ended up trying it with several, and I don't think any were disappointing.  Our favorite, however, was dipping the Parmigiano Reggiano in the honey.  It was a perfect contrast of smooth, sweet honey with the salty, dry, crumbly Parmesan.

Parmigiano Reggiano is a hard cheese made with skim cow's milk. The production is highly regulated.  The cows must be fed only fresh grass, hay or alfalfa, depending on the season, which creates variability in the flavor of the cheese throughout the year.  It can only be made in four provinces in the region of Emilia-Romagna (Modena, Parma, Reggio Emilia and Mantova) and one province in the region of Lombardy (Mantova).  The recipe has remained largely unchanged since the 12th century.  It takes 160 gallons of milk to make each 85 lb drum and each is aged between 18 and 36 months.

La Reggia
After just one bite of this crumbly cheese at Mafiaoza's, my husband paused and said, "This reminds me of the Pecorino with honey we had at that place in Fiesole. Do you remember it?"  I looked at him silently for a moment before responding, "Do I remember it? Really?  I remember everything about that meal.  It was amazing!  We had the asparagus tart appetizer, I had the tagliatelle with guinea-hen sauce, you had the ravioli with tomato-orange sauce, and we had the Pecorino with honey for dessert.  It's one of my most memorable meals!"  It was the first time I had really considered cheese as a dessert, other than cream cheese.  We savored each bite of the firm, slightly grainy, cheese drizzled with sweet honey.  The pecorino was "di Grotta."  It was a sheep's milk cheese aged around four months in caves and washed with oil.  The restaurant was La Reggia, and we stumbled on it quite by accident.  We had taken the bus to Fiesole, and then climbed a steep incline to the overlook.  We ended up staying quite a while, so transfixed by the view of Florence during daylight, that I decided I wanted to stay long enough to see how the city lights and mountains looked in a night sky.  Therefore, we needed to kill some time, and there's no better way to do that in Italy than with food!  We walked a short ways back down the path and discovered La Reggia.  It was the only restaurant that we saw up where we were, and from inside, we could still look out over Florence to enjoy the changing light.  We both want to return to Fiesole and stay there for a couple days.



climbing to the overlook


Florence from Fiesole



Firenze da Fiesole alla notte

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