By a stroke of luck I ended up in Emilia-Romagna, an Eden of fine cooking and savory ingredients. I'd been living in France for nearly a decade and, while the food captivated me, each trip to Italy begged another.
Growing up in the U.S, I had an idea of Italy as a European state, but now I was discovering its infinite provincial diversity. The nation has millennia of history, but it's only been a unified country since 1861. Twenty individual regions weave a multicolored patchwork of provinces, cities, and villages: bygone kingdoms and feudal states.
In 2000 I landed a job as a tour guide with a company based in Forlì. No idea where that was. I hefted my world atlas onto the kitchen table and thumbed through the index: F ... For ... Forlì. Italy sculpts more of a leg than a boot on the map. Forlì lies in Emilia-Romagna: a broad expanse spreading across her thigh like a garter. The region takes its name from the Via Aemilia — the 160-mile ancient Roman road stretching east, straight as a tightrope from Piacenza to the Adriatic Sea.
The Apennines, Italy's mountainous spine, arch east then south from the Mediterranean Sea to form the territory's lower border. Slanting vineyards and soft grassy slopes smooth north into orderly orchards. Parcels of kiwi populate the flat Po River plain. Renaissance towers, medieval ruins, and cypress spires cap rolling hills. And wavy grids of silvery olive trees garnish the slopes.
Emilia-Romagna's cultural heritage embraces Parma's powerfully arched cathedral, Bologna's leaning brick towers, and sixth-century mosaics in Ravenna; once the Western Roman Empire's capital. Pellegrino Artusi, the father of Italian cooking, grew up in Forlimpopoli.
But Emilia and Romagna are one only on paper. In the eighth century, the Frankish King Pippin III pawned off the troublesome southeastern regions on the papacy. Like twins separated at birth, they matured into individual personas. Romagnoli are 'chicken-farming country bumpkins,' say the 'snooty, know-it-all' Emiliani.
