Food experience in the Italian Food Valley

LET'S BUY, COOK AND TASTE!
Let’s experience a moment of typical life in Parma, just outside the city in the flourishing green countryside surroundings. The manor and rustic cottages, the beautiful garden and the swimming pool will welcome you for your special cooking course, you will have the chance to go and buy the ingredients at local producers and markets; then, in the manor kitchen, you can learn how to cook the best dishes of the Parma and Emilia Romagna tradition such as tortelli, anolini, pasta, meats, zuppa inglese, desserts… The course will end with a lunch or dinner with the dishes you have prepared, accompanied by delicious local wines. When you return home, you will have all the “tools” to surprise your friends!

SENSORIAL EXPERIENCE OF ALL FOOD VALLEY’S COLD CUTS AND DELI TRADITIONS
Not only Prosciutto di Parma and Culatello di Zibello, our land is rich in special and delicious deli meats. After visiting a Prosciutto di Parma producer, in a location devoted to tastings, a sensorial path will let you play with all the spices and aromas that make every product unique: to see, to touch, to smell, to recognize each aroma while tasting the products, will be an unforgettable experience and a valuable addition of knowledge for your gastronomic culture. Then a special tasting for every product: let's recognize the aromas inside Coppa, Salame di Felino, Pancetta, Prosciutto di Parma, Culatello di Zibello and taste them combined with special ingredients or fruit. Try the Pig game and if you like the challenge, a game with blindfolded players is waiting for you!

WINE WALK IN NATURE WITH ROMANTIC NUANCES
At a family run wine producer in the apennine foothills near Torrechiara Castle, just 20 minutes from Parma. Here you can harvest the grapes, learn about the vine growing techniques, visit the wine cellar and taste the best local wines and typical products. On a sunny day you can easily reach Torrechiara Castle with a short walk through the vineyards and learn about the romantic love story of its founder.

TREKKING AND HUNTING FOR BLACK TRUFFLE AND PORCINO MUSHROOM
An exciting way to live the sweet Apennine mountains is to experience the hunting of two edible and precious treasures that grow hidden in the beautiful woods of our mountains: the Black Truffle of Fragno and the Porcino mushroom of Borgotaro. Hunting for Truffles and Porcino mushrooms is a tradition for people who live in the hills, a playful activity and a passion which often transforms into a lucrative pastime. Let’s walk through the woods, fields and forests accompanied by an expert truffle hunter with his specially trained dog. If we are in luck and find the truffles, or even if we don’t, at the end a greedy tasting of local products with Black truffles is waiting for you! And the following day, in the nearby valley, an expert environmental guide will lead you through the mountain paths to look for Porcino mushrooms while explaining about Apennine mushrooms, herbs and trees. It will be surprisingly pleasant to walk through mountain villages where the small ancient stone houses adorned by porches and sculpted arches, will lead you to cosy inns and restaurants, to local food and handicraft shops. 

DISCOVERING THE AGRICULTURAL BIODIVERSITY
Take the chance to really get to grips with agricultural biodiversity: sweetly scented wines, cold cuts, Parmigiano Reggiano, other local cheeses, jams and bread made from historical grains. Let the silence of the green hills of Parma embrace you as you sleep inside the park in a comfortable and well equipped wooden cabin and give yourself up to this moment of relaxation in contact with nature.

PAIRING BEER AND CHEESE!
Beer and cheese have more in common than we imagine. Both are the result of complex fermentation processes; both are products whose taste changes over time; both know how to enhance perfumes, emphasize tastes and be pleasant on the tongue. When the cheeses and beers are produced in Parma taste buds rejoice. Organize special tastings with us of truly particular cheeses paired with the productions of a local Brewery. Spend pleasant moments and pamper your palate with some of the excellent products of our area. The taste result will only surprise you!

A BICYCLE RIDE FOR FOODIES
On your bike in the Parma lowlands, in the company of a cook-food expert-tourist accompanier and excursion guide but above all a food and wine cyclist! On your bikes for a bike ride in friendly natural surroundings amongst fields, barns and characteristic farmhouses which lead to the majestic Po river. Follow the road to a producer of Parmigiano Reggiano and a cellar for maturing Culatello di Zibello. Absolutely not to be missed are the areas associated with Giuseppe Verdi: his Birthplace, the Verdi Theatre and the Villa Verdi in Sant’Agata. You can do the tour on your own bike or you can hire one locally.

EACH DROP IS A TRUE GEM: TRADITIONAL BALSAMIC VINEGAR
Walk through the vineyards with a wise wine producer and harvest your grape according to his advices, because grapes are the source of it all. Visit the wine museum exhibiting tools and equipment illustrating the production cycles of the vines and wine. Visit the Traditional Balsamic Vinegar facility where the vinegar matures in ever smaller barrels made of different types of wood for at least 12 years, absorbing their timeless, incomparable perfume and aroma. This is the only way to become truly precious. Guess which Traditional Balsamic Vinegar is perfect with pickled onions, or with Parmigiano Reggiano and dessert. Taste them in their area of origin!