62. Spending a Month in Modena

62 Modena Scuola di Cucina Girasole, the cooking school I attended is located in Modena. Modena is a small northern city in Emilia Romagna located between Bologna and Parma. Frankly, there is not much to see, except for its Duomo. What it does have pales before the cultural richness of Bologna. On the other hand, Modena is a good base from which to explore the cities around it. One can spend the day at Bologna, Mantua, or Padua, to name but a few, and return in time for the evening class. And Modena is rich in holding festivals during the weekend at the main piazza.

 I think it fair to say that “culture” for Modena means good food and not the imagination as in Bologna with its music academy, theatre, art galleries, etc. On the other hand, one is hard pressed to find a restaurant that serves good food of the region at a reasonable price in the centre of Bologna. The best food I’m told is to be found outside the city centre because the restaurants in the centre cater to tourists. [Of course, there are the Sicilian restaurants, but I got swindled in each one I went to. In fairness, I also got cheated by non-Sicilian restaurants in Bologna]. Modena, in contrast, boasts the number one ranked chef in Italy, but you also pay for the experience – if you can afford it. On the other hand, there are excellent restaurants reasonably priced within the city centre, because the good people of Modena love their food and are proud of their cuisine. I also found the restaurants were honest in their dealings.

There is nothing of the excitable South in the good citizens. People are quiet, respect one’s space and are helpful. Unlike Rome where one has to be on guard for the swindler, in Modena one felt as secure as in one’s hometown. Certainly people in class at the Scuola di Cucina Girasole were very friendly. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the classes I hardly saw them again.

Lessons run for mainly one night, sometimes two and rarely three. So the student body is constantly changing with only a few who might return to take a lesson in cooking some other specialty. Consequently, they were not a source of friends with whom I could spend time during the day. Hence I was left with a lot of time on my hands, and time can grow heavy. In a sense I half defeated the purpose of my trip since my goal was to immerse myself in Italian for the entire day. Unfortunately, I hardly met anyone during the day. The occasional word with a store clerk hardly counts. I think if I ever return to Italy it will be to a city where I have friends, because the only way to ensure that one is immersed in the culture is to speak to others, like friends or colleagues at work.

61. Trying a Different Way - Scuola di Cucina Girasole

61. Trying a Different Way -- Scuola di Cucina Girasole in Modena
This year (2013), I decided that I wanted to try a different approach in my quest to speak Italian. Instead of going to a language school I would try something totally different: I went to a cooking school, the Scuola di Cucina Girasole in Modena.

I searched through the Internet for a school, but found most exorbitantly expensive, costing about eight to ten thousand dollars for a month. These schools mainly focused on teaching a student to be a professional cook, and the “amateur” seemed to me an after thought. Or else they catered to tourists. I wanted a total ambience of Italian, and I found it at the Scuola di Cucina Girasole.

Scuola Girasole caters to the people living in and around Modena, and they were the normal housewives, professionals, bachelors, and young women and men.  I think we had all walks of life from physician to store clerk. If the students were all amateurs [in the best sense of the word] the instructors were or had been all professionals.

Classes were small, about 12 – 14 on average with a friendly atmosphere in which everyone spoke Italian. A few tried to speak English to me, but once I expressed my reason for coming they all switched back to Italian. The main instructor was Clara, and she was very considerate in seeing that I could follow. In fact, I had little trouble following, and if I didn’t understand anything, I could ask or read the notes and then ask.
 
The average price for a course was about 60 to 65 euros per night. So a three-night course would be about 190 euros. These were rare, as most were one night, and a few required two nights. Generally, classes started at 8 p.m. and ran till 11.30 to midnight. During the last half-hour we sat down and ate what had been prepared. Obviously, if the course was on confectionery, then that is what we had to eat. One could take away one’s portion. On the other hand, the nights where we prepared il primo piatto [pasta] or il secondo piatto [meat or fish], we would sit down to a full dinner, because Clara usually included a dessert in the list of dishes to be prepared. The school supplied wine, as any self-respecting Italian dinner would require.  One soon got used to eating at 11, and anyway, Italians do eat late! The restaurants in Modena begin to fill up at 9 p.m. What more can one ask for? A lesson followed by a full dinner!

In many ways, the lessons reminded me of non-vocational evening classes held by the Vancouver School Board. I remember taking Chinese cooking, and it was fun to prepare and to eat. However, the big difference is that at Girasole the lessons were more thorough in that we covered all the main variations of a type of food. For example, in the first lesson of Cucina modenese we prepared 5 different dishes. I was introduced to tortellini in brodo, and it was exquisite – I hope I can reproduce it for my friends. I made a point of trying out the same dish at different restaurants, and only one came close with its broth.

Participation in the class was a personal choice. Some prepared to watch while others rolled up their sleeves and proceeded to cut chop peel etc. I didn’t need to cut etc so I watched, but helped when there was something special to do. The key was making the pasta and Carla was careful to ensure that we all took a hand at making it. Here, of course, is where one separates the neophytes from the more experienced, be they young or older, because most Italian women have helped and learnt from their grandmother – what I call the nonna experience. The key is to learn what to expect and how to do it, and then to practise at home. [I comfort myself by saying that Rome was not built in a day].

In my next blog I will discuss my experience in Modena.