Ooo La La Lyon: It's Adventure Time

Vineyard in Beaujolais

This week has been super fun, but so exhausting!

The Alps just on the other side of the Italian boarder

To start off the week I went on a school field trip to Italy. We went to Italy to look at four different companies (one was still in France). The drive to Italy was breath taking. There was A LOT of pristine mountains and streams, with tiny towns tucked in between them. The first day we stayed at a hostel in Parma, Italy. We had dinner at the hostel and it was so good. We started off with gnocchi with parmesan cheese and tomato sauce, then it was chicken with potatoes, followed by a apple cookie tart for dessert.

On Tuesday we were off to visit two different companies. The first company that we visited Parmigiano Reggiano. The parmesan cheese was cool to see. When we got there they were manually cutting the curds. After the production floor we went the different aging rooms. The first aging room was for the first couple of days. Then it moves into the salt water room where it sits in a brine for three weeks. Then it is transferred to the last aging room where they stay till they are ready (roughly 2ish years). To check to see if the cheese is ready they wack it with a hammer. The cheese master knows the correct sound the cheese should make.

parmesan cheese in salt brine

The second company made Parma Ham! All I can say about this facility was that there was rooms upon rooms of cured ham in different stages. The things that surprised me about this company was how strict the regulations are for them to put the Parma Crown on their product. There are strict rules for the pig farmers to follow, processing parameters for the company, and final product standards. There has to be a certified person to come and stamp the ham to officially say that it can be cut into ham slices. There is also some one at the packaging end that has to make sure that the packaging complies with the Parma standards for the countries that it is sent to.

After this we drove to Torino where we ate a Pizzeria. I had lasagna and a couple of pieces of pizza from others at my table. The lasagna was so delicious! The pizza was different then what I am use to, but is was still delicious. For dessert we had ice cream with strawberry or chocolate sauce. We ate at the same Pizzeria the next night, and I had pasta with bacon and tomato sauce. Then for dessert we had chocolate ice cream with a marshmallow filling. There are different foods in Italy that I had never tried before, and those that know me know that I love yogurt. In Italy I tried some pistachio yogurt. It was great! There was actually pistachio's in the yogurt, and just not flavoring.

Some Pama Ham

The following day we drove to Turin where we went to Lavazza coffee. When we got there we got to have a cappuccino made for us. It was so good! I did have to put two packs of sugar in it, but once that happened it was good. The tour started with a presentation about the company. A couple interesting facts that I leaned was that the top consumers of coffee are Finland, Norway, and Denmark. The US was 18th, and France was 11th. Next was how they use the silver skin from the coffee beans to make pellets to help fuel a fire. They also have most of their facility automatized. I think I only saw one person working on the production floor. There was this giant warehouse where the coffee is stored before being shipped off has three giant robots that go and place/retrieve the products.

Now it was time to go back home to France, and see one last company. Before we got to our last company we got to eat lunch in Chambrey. There was this elephant fountain in the town. There was also a castle, but I did not go inside. However, I did get to walk around the outside. After lunch, we got a tour of Alpina Savoie, which is a pasta company. A couple of cool facts that I learned about the company was that they sell their left over pasta to pet food makers to have them incorporate it into a different product. Also one thing that the company does to make their facility more sustainable is to use 100% durum wheat produced in France.

Me outside Lavazza

On Friday I had school, but afterward a friend and I went to a Science night. There we took part in the physiological excrement about word association. There where four choices the top two were categories like a dangerous animal and a docile animal. Then below were two option that were sounds. These sounds were not in any language, so I didn't have to worry about not understanding them. Afterward we got an explanation of what they were testing. The experiment had to do with your dominate hand, how one hears inflections, and the association one make between the categories and the sounds. Another booth we went to was about fermentation. We had to smell different vials of things that have been fermented and guess what they are. They also had different cultures spread out across the table. We could also look at some under a microscope. Then we listened to a presentation about muscles and how our brain signals to our muscles to contract. There was also a lecture on the new "plastic" that is not plastic but casein (a protean in milk). They had different samples of this milk plastic for us to see. It was super interesting to see this great alternative to plastic.

cultures of different fermented things

Saturday was another trip! This time it was the a vineyard in the Beaujolais region. At this vineyard we were greeted by the husband and wife that run the vineyard. This Vineyard had been in 9 generations of this family. When he started the presentation about the different wines that they made he handed us a chardonnay, and then a red wine. Then we were off to lunch. For lunch, the first course was salad, with pâte, and bread. The main dish was this beef stew with potatoes. We also had another one of the red wines that they make. Next was the cheese plate with bread, followed by our dessert. For dessert we had cookies, cake, espresso, and an amber wine. After the conclusion of lunch we got to make bread!! We just had to shape the bread into loafs, then they were placed into an outside oven. While the bread was baking we got a tour of the fields. There were heard a story about how the husbands great grandfather met is great grandmother. After the tour we went back and got to take the bread out of the oven with one of those long wooden spatulas (not the correct terminology, but I don't know what it is called). Before we left, the husband then said this "Il y a trois choses importantes dans la vie: le pain, le vin, et les copains.". This means, "There are three important things in life: bread, wine, and friends."

Well this was my week! I have had a great week and can't wait to see what fun happens next!!