Bologna: Good Any Way You Slice It

Rows of hand-massaged, pampered proscuitto di Parma hang from the ceiling of a Bologna delicatessen. (By Barbara Bradlyn Morris)

On our last night in Bologna, we were rude, mopping up sauce with bread. It's called "making a shoe," and it's okay, except in upscale restaurants -- which is where we were: an intimate, candlelit nook at the restaurant Ciacco (Via San Simone, 1/c), surrounded by stylishly dressed Italians.

One word -- divine -- describes our meal of falling-apart-tender beef tongue in a light olive oil sauce generously flecked with minced parsley. Next was tortelloni stuffed with ricotta and Parmesan, snug in a bed of nettle cream and topped with toasted, crunchy chips of Parmigiano-Reggiano. Against the pure-white sculpted china plates, the colors were bold.

The slightly bitter nettle cream was as dark as green-black jade, a sharp contrast to the bright, pumpkin-yellow pasta. (The rich color of northern Italian pasta comes from combining as many as 10 or 12 eggs per kilo of flour.)

My husband's main course looked like a bright abstract painting: a fan of rosy lamb chops, a forest-green heap of sauteed chard and a foamy puddle of salty sabayon sauce.

My galletto alla cacciatora (rooster stew) was a dome-shaped piece of dark meat covered with a rich, reddish-brown, stewy mix of finely minced vegetables, herbs and wine. No wonder we were surreptitiously making lots of shoes.

Sadly, our tour of Emilia-Romagna came to an end. We returned home toting a two-pound chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano. We nibble on it now and then. It's our madeleine that recalls the days when we truly ate the food of the gods.

-- Barbara Bradlyn Morris