Giuseppe Verdi at the table

The peasant-bourgeois meal of the Po plain as served at Verdi's table: you start with *salumi* (cured meats) and a chunk of Parmigiano, then a comforting *primo* (rice or stuffed pasta in broth), followed by a farm meat, and end with a dense, keepable *dolce*. All washed down with wine produced on the Sant'Agata estate. No French-style 'starter-main-dessert' order: *salumi* → *primo* → *secondo* → *dolce*, around the family table.

The signature of Verdi's table lies in the salted, aged pork of the damp plain between Parma and the Po — *spalla*, *culatello* — and the Parmigiano-Reggiano grated over everything. The Maestro proudly sent them by post to his friends: it was the pride of his land, not a salon luxury.