On Friday I spent some hours with Anna, from Beautiful Liguria, visiting the laboratory of Genovese confectioner Pietro Romanengo Fu Stefano.
Our tour was followed by an interview, one that opened a door to the confectioner's history, spanning some 234 years.
The details were fascinating. The machinery is only replaced if the new equipment leaves the quality of the end product uncompromised and so it was a tour of an older way of doing things. Attention to detail was everywhere.
I was offered the opportunity to taste as we wandered. The delicacy of the products startled me. I have never tasted anything like the marzipan, the pastilles, nor the chocolates, flavoured as they are, with real flowers and candied fruits.
I will write more but the pastilles below ... delicate and surprising, as they melt in your mouth, releasing the most divine liquid. 'The perfumed pastilles, known also as “ginevrine” (Genevans), have a very ancient processing where the colour and the aroma given to the sugar are absolutely natural. They can be purchased loose in 500g bags with the taste of rose, banana, Chartreuse liqueur, aniseed, peach, marasca cherry, mint and violet.'
