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Typically Italian has seven nights at Al Vecchio Convento from £639 per person half-board, including flights to Bologna and car hire. A five-day cookery and wine course costs from £336, with lessons and visits to local producers. A three-day Truffle Adventure costs from £236. Watercolour painting courses are from £249 for 10 classes. All courses are commissionable. Typically Italian sells only through agents and has no website.
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salad dressings, for cooking, or for different fish dishes. I sheepishly admitted I used the same bottle of olive oil for pretty much everything, but promised to mend my ways. The following morning I was itching to get in the kitchen to try my hand at making fresh pasta. Kneading, rolling and re-rolling it was more labour-intensive than I’d imag- ined. I mixed up spinach and ricotta cheese with herbs, piped out small amounts into slightly wobbly rows, and made it into tiny ravioli parcels with a crinkle-cutter.
Al dente: Philippa practises the art of making pasta, which gets the approval of Typically Italian owner Daniele Broccoli
For tagliatelle, the pasta is rolled in from both sides to the middle, then cut it into very fine strips. There was also time to make the local speciality, piadina – a tasty flat bread cooked on an earthenware plate that can be stuffed with fillings like cheese. Massimo is eager to point out how many of the Italian foods we're familiar with in the UK come from Emilia-Romagna – and
not Tuscany. The city of Parma is home to Parma ham while Bologna invented the ubiquitous Bolognese sauce. True lasagne originated here, as did Parmigiano-Reggiano, or Parmesan cheese.
Towards the end of my trip, Massimo landed on me the biggest culinary bombshell of all: Italians do not serve spaghetti and Bolognese sauce together. Spaghetti needs a simple oil sauce, while heavy bolognese is better suited to tagliatelle. Stop press! I can only imagine what Massimo would have to say about my frozen Birds Eye meal
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