Fine Cheese & Charcuterie August 2016

Italian hospitality is legendary, of course, but on several occasions I’ve experienced
it firsthand. Most recently it was when my publisher David Spencer and I were traveling in Italy last May to attend the international trade fair CIBUS in Parma, as well as to visit several food producers in the regions of Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Modena.

At one point in our journey we found ourselves rather stranded outside the town of Modena. We had been dropped o at a charming country inn that was about 6 or 7 kilometers from the factory we were there to visit. We walked to a nearby trattoria that sat alongside the highway. Our plan was to have lunch and then call a taxi to take us to our destination. However, because we were too far outside of town, none of the cab companies wanted to pick us up to take us such a short distance. We even had the restaurant owner call, thinking perhaps it was a language difficulty, but he had no better luck. Sensing our situation, the owner told us to wait a moment and went out to speak to some people that had been having lunch on the terrace with their children and another family. He came back and said, “They will take you.” The children were left with the other family and David and I squeezed into the back of a small FIAT on either side of a child’s car seat and o we went. The couple spoke no English and
my Italian is pretty weak but we managed to tell them where we were going. It took them a while to find the factory as it was in a sort of industrial park, but with their GPS on their iPhone they seemed to think it was an adventure. When they finally dropped us they smiled and said goodbye and we thanked them profusely. When I offered to give the woman money for their time and fuel she resolutely refused. I urged her to accept and she would not hear of it. She simply flashed us her big beautiful smile again and wished us buona fortuna. 

It was a remarkable display of kindness and generosity and I shall never forget it. It’s not to say that things like that don’t happen here but in Italy they seem to happen a lot more often, at least in my experience. Everyone involved in customer service could take a lesson from the hospitality of the Italian people. As if there weren’t enough reasons to travel to Italy! 

James Mellgren 

Managing Editor, Fine Cheese & Charcuterie

jmellgren@gourmetbusiness.com