Plenty of dreadlocks, as well as ironic mohawks and mullets, but these Italian students wear stylish shoes and glasses, and scarves tossed just right.

Not the sloppy US student at the McDonald's at the sterile (Architecturally,
Not germ free:) Student Union.

ITALIAN STUDIES

Sun-Sentinel
Fort Lauderdale, FL
By Jason Wilson
January 23, 2005

This is what it's like to be me: You awake, only to realize you are late to catch a plane to Bologna, where you will meet a friend who has made it perfectly clear that the next 48 hours will also include way too much food and drink. (Yeah, well, life's tough, but nobody's going to offer you much in the way of sympathy, either. So get a move on.)

Bologna is known throughout Italy as La Grassa (The Fat) for its love of food. This city of a half-million is recognized by many Italians as the nirvana of the country's cucina -- and how could it not be with the bounty of cheeses, meats and produce coming from the fertile farmlands of Emilia-Romagna? Bologna is renowned for its golden, airy pasta made only with egg yolks, its rich buttery cuisine, and its food shops and restaurants.

That's why your friend, Pete, is coming here. He's a pasta maker from Philadelphia, and his plan is to do as much hands-on food and drink research as he possibly can in Bologna before returning to the family shop. When you step off the flight, he's waiting for you. "Welcome to Fat City!" he shouts across the terminal...

After dropping bags off at the Hotel Roma, you and Pete wander under some of the city's famed 22 miles of stately porticoes. "I wonder if the people here even know what rain feels like," Pete says.

Near the university, you start to see hand-scrawled, photocopied signs that read "Faccio Dread Lock. Buon Prezzo." ["I make dread lock. Good price."] All but a few of the wispy little tabs with phone numbers that you rip off at the bottom remain. There are other signs advertising DJs at clubs and used furniture, but "Faccio Dread Lock" is most noteworthy since these seem to promise a slightly edgier Italian experience than you'd get at the typical Tuscan villa.

The first hour in Bologna happily coincides with the city's near-sacred aperitivo hour. A group of dreadlocked Italian kids duck into a bar called La Scuderia, and both of you decide it is fate and duty to follow them. Inside, throngs of university kids are using student ID cards to buy aperitivi.

These are not the college kids you went to school with -- the ones that wore Grateful Dead T-shirts and played hackey sack and smelled like patchouli. These students wear stylish shoes and glasses, and scarves tossed just right. Plenty of dreadlocks, as well as ironic mohawks and mullets, in the house. You sit by the bar and eat olives and drink proseccos and perfect Negronis served by the cute bartender with the mullet and a stud through her upper front gum.

The DJ spinning the mellow late afternoon tunes ends his shift and joins you for a drink, presumably because he is in his mid-to-late 30s and is slightly closer to your age than anyone else in the bar. The DJ says he's a "Dottore di musicoligo" and a professor at the university. He gives you his card as if to prove it.

Bologna's other nickname is La Dotta (The Learned) because of the university, which dates back to 1082 and is the oldest in Europe. The city, buzzing with students, is the kind of place where professors work as DJs and bartenders in popular clubs. You, Pete, and the DJ will debate for a half-hour whether or not you can call Bologna "the Italian Boston."

Aperitivo hour is not only for the young, and so you and Pete move back to the narrow alleys radiating off the grand Piazza Maggiore -- where last summer, in the open air, you watched old black-and-white films like Charlie Chaplin's Limelight on a huge outdoor screen. At RosaRose, you are met by a huge wheel of Reggiano-Parmigiano, a bowl full of caper berries, and crostini with mascarpone and tuna. At Il Calice, you eat small sandwiches made with the finest culatello and prosciutto. Then it is time for dinner.

Trattoria Gianni, down an alley off the Via Clavatura, is a place where you've always eaten well. Inside, you are seated next to two men in their mid-20s from Lucca. They are gelato-machine salesmen and are in town for a seminar on the latest technology in gelato-making. You fall into a conversation with them, and they tell you, "Order a wine from Tuscany. Tuscan wine is better."

"But whose food is better?" Pete asks them.

"Well," they say sheepishly, "Bolognese."

You eat tortelli filled with squash blossoms, tortelli filled with speck, and gnocchetti di zucca with butter and sage. Then polenta drizzled with melted, smoky mozzarella, and "ravioli" made out of slices of bresaola stuffed with cheese. Then, a cotaletta Bolognese, which puts the Veal Parmigiano you get back home to shame...

After dinner, you wander through the Piazza San Stefano, which is filled with students, a few of whom strum guitars and many of whom smoke marijuana. The nearby L'Infidele is a classic hole-in-the-wall wine bar, full of political commentary on the walls, and a big poster from an old Ronald Reagan movie, with the former president holding a gun.

Nearing midnight, you migrate back toward the university, and end up at a place that's called -- no lie -- College Bar. You are immediately befriended by an Italian
girl named Adelaide who cannot pronounce your name and calls you "Jackson" ("Like Michael Jackson").

Adelaide introduces you to the barman,"GianLuca is the best barman in the world." GianLuca throws bottles around as if he is Tom Cruise in Cocktail, and tells you he is a psychology professor at the university. Adelaide keeps asking him for something called "short drinks," which look suspiciously like shots.

You meet Adelaide's friend, a 19-year-old boy from Lago Garda, and her sister, whose head is shaved bald and whose name you did not catch, but who says, "Your Italian is very good for an American." After one tiny short drink, your Italian has become impeccable.

It is nearing 2 a.m. and you are speaking to a girl with a shaved head, in a bar, in what is widely considered the most communist city in Italy. You know what the conversation will eventually come around to: "I don't usually like Americans so much," she says with a chuckle, adding, "But you guys are OK."

The blond boy says, "Americans all love McDonald's."

"I don't eat at McDonald's," Pete says. "I've never eaten at McDonald's in my entire life."

"Well, I don't believe you," the boy says. Then, a few moments later: "What do you do for a living?"

"I make pasta," Pete says.

"Now, I really don't believe a word of what you say."...

The next morning, Pete wakes you early because he wants to see the market and the food shops in the alleys to the east of the Piazza Maggiore.

Amid all the fruit and vegetable vendors, you find a mellow cafe for breakfast. The barista draws a smiling face in the crema of your machiato with just a few quick strokes of a toothpick, and winks as she serves it to you.

Then suddenly there is a shout and commotion in the street, and she rushes out the door and jumps onto the seat of her Vespa. The Polizia Municipale is writing parking tickets, and she sits now on her Vespa until the polizia leaves. Another barista appears from the back and makes Pete his cappuccino.

The food shops -- the formaggerie, the salumerie, the pasticcerie -- are the true sightseeing attractions in Bologna. At a cheese shop called Al Vero Grana, Pete
and the owner get into a discussion about how impossible it is to import raw milk cheeses into the United States. The man then ducks into the walk-in and reappears with a wheel of creamy, rare Taleggio di Monte for us to taste. Since you love cheese, this taste almost brings tears to your eyes. You also buy hunks of misto Toscana and a Provolone stravecchio.

At the Salumeria Simoni, you are moved to declare the meats beautiful, even the zampone, the large pig's foot that has been boned, scraped clean of its insides, and then stuffed. The man behind the counter in the white paper hat slices you paper-thin cuts of prosciutto Langhirano.

Finally, you arrive at glorious Tamburini, the food shop that is a Bologna institution. You spend nearly an hour browsing the long cases of marinated vegetables, stuffed vegetables, seafood salads, roasted chickens and rabbits, legs of lamb and, of course, dozens of pastas. Pete is shooting a photo through the window when a twentyish guy approaches and says, "Hey, I heard you speaking English there. Are you studying the stores, too?"

"Studying the stores?" Pete asks. It turns out this young man's family runs a small Italian specialty shop in Toronto. He's just finished college, and is spending three months traveling around Italy. "I'm researching ideas to bring home."...

Perhaps it's time for lunch. Ristorante Pappagallo is the most famous restaurant in Bologna, so you figure it's worth a try. When you walk in you are met by formal waiters, white tableclothes, and autographed photos of Sophia Loren, Matt Dillon, Lionel Ritchie and a bunch of Italian actors you've never heard of. You order two Bolognese specialties for lunch -- lasagna verdi and tagliatelle ragú. You follow that with a whole bronzino.

After lunch, you stagger back toward the Piazza Maggiore, and your hotel. You've been in Bologna for 24 hours so far. You may need a little nap. There's still a little over 24 hours to go.

Jason Wilson lives in Haddonfield, N.J.

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