Modest Modena

Laura Morelli

Locals careen quietly down the gentrified streets of Modena on old bicycles. Women in housedresses dig coins from their change purses to pay for ripe cantaloupes at the outdoor market. Pigeons flee from the cathedral tower as the bells clang precisely at 7:00am. Standing in its tranquil central square, the Piazza Grande, you’d never guess that this gracious yet unassuming city holds the key to some of Italy’s most prized cultural traditions.

First, there’s design and the arts. Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti was born and bred in Modena, and still performs to sold-out audiences in his hometown. Modena is also home to the automotive design legends of Ferrari and Maserati, companies that were founded in Modena and boast factories on the city’s outskirts. The Ferrari Museum in Maranello, just south of Modena, welcomes visitors and offers factory tours.

But it’s Modena’s gastronomic fame that makes gourmands from around the world salivate at the mere mention of the town. And that’s saying much in a country where you can find an outstanding meal almost anywhere, any time.

Modena stands at the heart of Italy’s breadbasket, the central region of Emilia-Romagna. These flat, sweeping farmlands between Parma and Bologna produce some of Italy’s most-prized culinary traditions, including the world-famous Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and the cured ham known as prosciutto di Parma. Along with traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena, these foods form a holy trinity of culinary delights in Emilia- Romagna. In the last century, these local products have risen above the confines of their region to conquer the taste buds of the world. Best of all, the three taste great together. In fact, it’s vinegar that put Modena on the map. Today, people from all over the world come to Modena just to taste a few drops of balsamic vinegar dribbled straight into their spoons.

Vinegar? The thought of sampling bitter-tasting liquid straight from a spoon is enough to draw anyone’s face into a squeamish pucker. But this is not just any vinegar, and it’s anything but bitter. This is traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena, aceto balsamico tradizionale di Modena, the king of vinegars and one of Italy’s most important culinary legacies.

Nobody knows how long people around Modena have been making this aromatic vinegar, but documents attest that aristocrats exchanged it on important occasions as far back as the eleventh century. Traditionally, the best balsamic vinegars were made at home as a hobby, and were considered the ultimate gift. People willed the precious juice to their heirs, and it was even included in women’s dowries.

Authentic traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena is not to be confused with the so-called "balsamic vinegar of Modena" that you find on supermarket shelves in America. What’s the difference? It’s the word tradizionale that’s missing from the mass-produced vinegars-a small distinction, but a big difference. The commercial vinegars are made from wine with artificial colors and flavors. The real stuff is made with nothing more than aged, pure grape juice, accounting for its sweet, not bitter, flavor.

You can pick up an eight-ounce bottle of 25-year-old vinegar directly from a top producer in Modena for about $60; the same bottle sells for $125 in a popular American culinary catalogue. In contrast, the mass-produced bottles go for around $6 in American grocery stores. Only about 20,000 bottles of the artisanal product are produced annually, compared to a huge production of 30 million bottles of the commercial product exported to supermarkets from Japan to the U.S. Look for the consortium logo and the words aceto balsamico tradizionale di Modena to assure you’re getting the real thing.

At this price, you’ll want to have a bottle or two of supermarket-grade vinegar for everyday use in cooking and salad dressings. Traditional balsamic vinegar breaks down when cooked, so you’ll want to save it to use as a condiment. You can drizzle it over postage-stamp-sized shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, or as a dressing for steamed vegetables, pan-fried frittate and meats for special dinner parties. One of the most surprising uses for balsamic vinegar is in desserts and sweets. At Modena’s most noted pastry shop, the Pasticceria San Biagio, you can find it used as a filling for chocolates, and incorporated into pastries and pastry cream. You can even serve it over strawberries and vanilla ice cream.

Today, hundreds of producers of traditional balsamic vinegar call Modena home. Most are family affairs, people who proudly and lovingly carry the torch of their ancestors by assigning a special place in their homes for the slow maturation of this luscious liquid. Balsamic vinegar begins on the vine with ripe, white Trebbiano grapes. The vinegar is made by boiling grape juice, and moving the juice year after year into increasingly smaller casks made of different kinds of wood, including oak, cherry and chestnut. Each producer boasts a different combination of casks and woods, as it is the wood itself that affects the particular flavor and aroma of the final product. These carefully guarded family secrets hold the key to each producer’s signature flavor and quality.

Often the barrels are stored in attic-level storage rooms, where they are exposed to summer heat and winter cold. As it ages, anywhere from ten to 25 years, the vinegar becomes more concentrated, richer in flavor-and more expensive. Rich, syrupy, fragrant, and almost black, its distinctive taste is immediately recognizable. Over the past two decades, traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena has come to be treated in the same way as fine wines-with highly controlled production and labeling methods. The local consortium monitors every producer from grape harvest to end product, assigning a designation much like the D.O.C. moniker for fine wines that serves as a quality symbol recognized around the world. Today, some 90 producers are authorized to carry the label, all in an 80-kilometer zone around Modena. Most are family-run operations started by ancestors generations ago.

Each May, the town hosts an annual festival called Balsamica. Some of the world’s most cultivated palates convene for this premier event, which overtakes the city of Modena for about a week. Local producers of aceto balsamico tradizionale di Modena open their doors, and restaurants plan special menus in which every course features this syrupy condiment that’s like no vinegar you’ve ever tasted. Outdoor stands pair the local specialty with wines, cheeses and other specialties. Crowds of people hold miniature spoons in their hands and watch in anticipation as someone dribbles a dime-sized drop of black syrup from a tiny glass jar. Inevitably, they close their eyes and smile as they enjoy this concentrated drop of Italy straight from the spoon.

If you want to see how this world-class vinegar is made, arrange a tour of one of the region’s producers. Most of these are family enterprises without marked storefronts or signs, so reservations are always recommended. A good place to start is the official consortium, the Consorzio Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena (Corso Cavour, 60; tel: 011-39-059-236981). The consortium establishes minimum standards for balsamic vinegar production and its inspectors put the stamp of approval on every bottle that comes to be called aceto balsamico tradizionale di Modena.

One of the best of Modena’s top producers is Acetaia Malpighi. The Malpighi family began growing their own grapes and producing balsamic vinegar as a hobby in 1850, sharing prized bottles with family and friends. Their small estate comprises a brick villa and a series of outbuildings housing rows of vinegar casks. Nearby, vines hang heavy with grapes, colorful pheasants forage beneath a grove of acorn trees and white swans glide across a still pond. There’s no sign at the gate, no advertising and no hint that behind this peaceful, unassuming façade lies one of Modena’s leading balsamic vinegar producers.

On the outskirts of town, Azienda Agricola Galli quietly carries on their own family tradition. Signora Galli is one of the matriarchs of balsamic vinegar of Modena. This elderly woman continues a tradition of homemade production of aceto balsamico in her exceptionally lovely estate. In a special storage building constructed just for vinegar, some 80 barrels of different woods lay silently in the attic-level room.

If you want to sample traditional balsamic vinegar along with some of the other gastronomic pleasures of the region, head to Fratelli Maletti, southwest of Modena on the Casin-albo/Formigine border. Here, the Maletti brothers have created a gourmand’s dreamland. You can sample local sausages and cheeses, pick up prepared dishes and wine for your picnic basket and, of course, purchase aceto balsamico tradizionale di Modena crafted by a handful of local producers. This tiny storefront is jam-packed with a bounty of Modena’s delicacies. You’ll find tiny, precious bottles of balsamic vinegar made by local producers, sold at a fraction of the price you’d pay outside of Italy. They also carry local olive oil, liqueurs, roasted coffee and other specialties of Modena.

And if you thought balsamic vinegar was only for salad, think again. The Pasticceria San Biagio pastry shop-a feast for the senses-will stretch the limits of your imagination about uses for balsamic vinegar. It’s incorporated into pastry cream and piped into flaky crusts. It’s used as a filling for dark chocolate. It’s even served by the spoonful straight from the bottle if you visit at festival time.

When it’s time for lunch, head to one of the town’s many fine restaurants, such as Ristorante Fini. Fini has two claims to fame: one is its luscious zuppa inglese, a silky, rich pudding into which balsamic vinegar is drizzled; the other is that Pope John XXII claimed it as one of his favorite restaurants. Balsamic vinegar of Modena figures heavily in the regional specialties on the menu.

When you’ve had your fill of culinary delights, you can do what all Italians do after a heavy meal: down an espresso, then go for a stroll. Modena is an eminently walkable city, with a lovely pedestrian zone around its most important monuments.

A good place to start is Modena’s cathedral. This masterpiece of Italian Romanesque architecture was begun in 1099 and consecrated a century later. While most medieval artists’ names are lost in history, both the cathedral’s architect, Lanfranco, and its master sculptor, Wiligelmo, have left their names to posterity.

In the sixteenth century, the dukes of Este established a rich court culture centered in Modena, where the family lived for more than 200 years. The grand ducal palace surrounds an austere courtyard that formed the heart of noble life in the period. Reputedly, the dukes rode their horses up a wide, gently sloping grand staircase, the Scalone, which led to the private apartments and receiving rooms of this grand residence.

This noble past accounts for the refined, aristocratic feel of Modena, but today it’s a city full of real people and few tourists. Best of all, Modena awaits you to discover its treasures, not the least of which is it’s vinegar. And how sweet it is.

Laura Morelli is the author of the forthcoming book, Made in Italy: A Shopper’s Guide to the Best of Italian Tradition. She can be reached through her website, http://www.lauramorelli.com.