On a food trip to Italy, we find cheese that reminds us of body parts, discover the beauty of olive oil, and see what dante's descendants are up to these days

Mumbai claims Italian amongst its favourite things to eat. But you can count the number of Italian restaurants on one hand and the memorable from amongst those on two fingers. Maybe it's all that Italian we think we're cooking at home: paneer pizza and spaghetti alfredo (forget paneer pizza, even spaghetti alfredo is an American invention, not Italian, says a chef we know).

So when Italian food importers R R O Oomerbhoy plan a trip to Italy to sample real Italian food and learn how it's made, we go.

Our trip is to showcase the making of the stars of Italian foodu00a0 olive oil, pasta, cheese and wine. Just risotto is missingu00a0 but our curiosity about it is satiated back home in Mumbai. More on that later.

There is a case for being a touristu00a0 you see what makes a country proud, at one level. But if you want to know the people, you must break bread with them. Italians eat a lot of bread, from shapes as familiar as the morning's flaky croissant (with jam, cheese or Nutella, thank you) to another that looks like a goat's horns. The surprising thing is that in Italy, no matter how hard the bread is, it does not cut your gums like some Indian varieties do. This has to do with the countless types of flours available, we are told.

We first head to north Italy, where winters are cold and the people are hard to find. We are in Spoleto, where we look for signs pointing not to piazzas and churches but to people.

u00a0A tourist clutches Juliet's breast and makes a wish, in Verona

Combing olive trees

Spoleto is in Umbria the mountains are breathtaking, just like in Switzerland. Mists roll across the highways and the cold bites at you. Streets wind up and down but women wear short skirts, booted stilettos and hurry home from grocery shopping. A little outside Spoleto, olive oil makers Monini have a factory, a Culinary Center and a guest house. We spend the night here and smell olive oil in our dreams.

The next day, after coffee and croissant (nothing heavy or salty before 11.30 am, we are told), we comb olives loose from the low-hanging branches of olive trees. We grapple with a giant electric comb and enjoy the olives raining down on us. Later, we drink warm and thick olive oil, straight from the pipes, even before it has been filtered. It's rich and yellow-green but leaves our palates clean, and not greasy, a fact brought to our notice at the olive oil tasting session later.

Groups of six and more can stay at the Monini Culinary Center, take in a cooking class (the chef is entertaining and gregarious). We also learn to tell apart the queen of all flavours GranFruttato Extra Virginu00a0 from rancid olive oil. There is a method to tasting olive oilu00a0 suck in air along with the oil and chew the whole thing before spitting it out.

You'll also get a crash course on the health benefits of olive oil. We learn that what sells most in India is a type of olive oil called pomace. It's the cheapest but not fit for human consumption, they tell us everywhere. After they have extracted every drop of oil from the olives, a brown sludge is left. This is treated with chemicals to get pomace. Always bet on extra virgin instead.

We taste raw olives too. They come in light green and purple colours, with the light green being most bitter and vile. But these are the ones that are best for your heart.

The healthiest olive oil contains olives in colours progressing from light green to purple. The light green fruit has great antioxidant properties. It lowers bad cholesterol and increases good cholesterol like no other oil will do. "Olive oil is good for over-eating," we are told cheerily. That explains the generosity with which olive oil is poured over bread everywhere. Next stop, Parma in Emilia-Romagna.