Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
all five of them have donated artifacts to
be exhibited here. The museum's first
room features an extensive collection of
ancient dairy tools and utensils, including
an 18th-century copper cauldron and a
hand-pulled milk wagon; the second room
details the history of curing; the third is the
aging room, where various rounds of
cheese are labeled according to how long
they have been sitting to mature. It could
be a cruelly tantalizing display, were it not
for the free samples. Everyone has tasted
something called Parmesan cheese, but
you can be guaranteed that the Parmesan
you taste here will be nothing like the
bland imitations sold in most American
supermarkets.
Next came the
Museum of Prosciutto
and Cured Pork Products
in Langhirano
(Via Bocchialini 7;
&
39/521/864-324
), an
unwieldy name that shows just how seri-
ously those distinctions are taken here. Its
setting is the early-20th-century brick
sheds of the cattle market between the
town center and the river, close to the
town's traditional ham curing plants. The
beginning section begins where all pork
begins—with the pig itself—while succes-
sive rooms explain in fine detail the vari-
ous stages of slaughtering, salting, curing,
and drying that produce all the meats of
Parma's
salumeria:
Prosciutto and coppa
from Parma, culatello from Zibello, salame
from Felino, and shoulder of ham from San
Secondo. (Already plans are in the works
to give salame its own separate museum.)
And just in case you don't know your cula-
tello from your coppa, a tasting room at
the end will allow you to sample these
silky, salty, deeply flavorful meats for your-
self.
Occupying a fine old medieval monastic
farmstead, the
Corte di Giarola
(Tomato
Museum)
in Collechio (Strada Giarola;
&
39/521/228152
) completes the set,
with exhibits that solve the mystery: Why
was this region of Italy the only one that
persisted in cultivating tomatoes in the
19th century, when they were considered
poisonous everywhere else (they are, after
all, related to deadly nightshade)? Parma's
leadership in developing the canning
industry in the 1920s is also explored in
artwork, maps, and artifacts.
Musei del Cibo de Parma
(
&
39/
521/228-152;
www.museidelcibo.it).
0
Parma (1 hr. from Bologna, 1
1
⁄
2
hr.
from Milan, 2 hr. from Florence).
L
$$$
Palace Hotel Maria Luigia,
Viale Mentana 140, Parma (
&
39/521/
281032;
www.sinahotels.it). $$
Hotel
Button,
Strada San Vitale Borgo Salina 7,
Parma (
&
39/521/208039
).
Food Museums
56
Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum
Noodling Around
Yokohama, Japan
A museum doesn't have to be a dull repos-
itory of artifacts. A case in point is the
Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum, an exhil-
arating multimedia monument to the Japa-
nese love of noodles. Everywhere you
turn, there's a fascinating exhibit—dis-
plays of cooking implements, walls deco-
rated with noodle packets from around
the globe, TV monitors playing a continu-
dioramas depicting the inner workings of
an instant ramen factory. There are even
whimsical ramen-themed video games
(just try pulling your kids away from
those).
This hip approach to noodle education
seems entirely appropriate, given the
international attention recently focused
on Momofuku Ando, the inventor of the
