Signor Glauco and his Parma Specialties

SIGNOR Glauco Muzzi is an Italian gourmet from Parma, a city in the Northern Italian Region of Emilia Romagna famous for its ham, cheese, architecture and fine countryside. Emilia Romagna is one of the richest and most developed regions in Europe. Parmegiano Reggiano, Proscuitto di Parma, Parma’s Culatello, Bologna and stuffed pastas are a few of the Parma specialties.

Gerry Sta. Ana, a Certified Public Accountant extraordinaire and a gourmet, introduced a few of his media friends to Glauco Muzzi, who owns Il Ducato Trading Inc. along AS Fortuna street in Mandaue City and has been importing fine wines, liqueurs, cheeses, hams, Italian and French delicacies. His warehouse-cum-store is not very accessible but has been doing brisk wholesale business so he decided to open “Antica Osteria”, which means ancient native restaurant, to retail his fine products closer to his growing clientele along Paseo Saturnino, Ma. Luisa Road in Banilad. Here, one can indulge in a variety of sliced cold cuts, cheeses, sandwiches and chilled wines in a cozy restaurant setup.

Glauco strikes me as someone who will do well as a professor in the culinary history and cuisine of Italy. A sales and marketing executive who worked with IBM for many years, his extensive travels brought him to the Philippines and saw the opportunity to do business in Cebu. His passion for food and wine, naturally, complements his business of importing Italian and French products. Il Ducato Trading Inc. was established in 1998 and continues to supply the hotel and restaurant industry. Yes, they have the exquisite and pricey Foie Gras, cooked or uncooked, as well as duck and goose.

Dinner was in the penthouse of his impressive building cum residence in Mandaue. Before sitting down for dinner, we had a little lecture on the different uncooked pastas that were served. They are now available commercially–pastas that are usually artisanal or prepared by hand.

Tortellini al Tartufo Nero is a ring-shaped pasta that is stuffed with cheese and the expensive black truffles, Caramelle al Prosciutto so named due to its candy form and Gragmina–a thin short curled pasta.

We started with Antipasto, Melone a Culatello. Culatello is the most prized cold cut from Parma, a refined Prosciutto, since a whole ham has to be discarded just to get to the pig’s rump muscle, seasoned and slightly salted, stuffed into a pig’s bladder, tied to give it a pear like shape, hang and aired for 8 to 12 months along the Po River in Parma. I relished the thinly sliced culatello wrapped around a juicy slice of sweet deep orange cantaloupe. This was followed by Tris di Pasta, three kinds of pasta in three different sauces: Tortellini Tartufo Nero cooked in melted butter, parmesan and sage, Caramelle al Prosciutto also cooked in butter and parmesan and Gragmina con Raggu di Salciccia or sausage sauce, which were all prepared by Glauco’s Cebuana wife, Joan who hails from Asturias. Vitello Tonnato or veal with tuna sauce was served after the pastas.

Instead of veal, Joan used slices of pork tenderloin, which were completely covered by the tuna sauce. Canned tuna was pureed with olive oil, mayonnaise, anchovies and seasoned with cayenne pepper and lemon juice. On the side, we had Patate in Tecia, potatoes that were boiled, squeezed in the pan of sautéed bacon and onions in olive oil to render it into coarse pieces and browned on both sides. Italian wines paired well with the dishes.

Dessert was Strudel di Melle or apple strudel, which has a long story how it found its way and became a typical dessert in Northern Italy.