Italy: The finest truffles, colourful cheese, lots of fun

Endless bowls of delicious ice cream flavours are lined up in long chests - from classic vanilla or mango to "Nocciola", caffè and pistachio to walnut-fig or pomegranate. There are cappuccino and crèpes, brightly coloured wrapped chocolates and many different types of ham and salami. "Yummy, yummy, yummy!" shouts a pizza chef from a corner. A few metres further on, steaming spaghetti is tossed in a wheel of Peccorino cheese and then served with fresh pepper. Strolling through this rear section of Hall 4.2b, you feel as if you are encountering all the delicacies of Italy in a few hundred square metres.

Eight weeks for one salami

At first glance, most of the products look familiar. On closer inspection - and especially when tasting - there is still a lot of great things to discover. For example, the Parmeggiano Reggiano that Salumificio Benese from Piedmont has set up in the centre of its stand is spectacularly large. It probably weighs around 21 kilograms, says salesman Paco. It used to weigh 42 kilos in total. All around, salami hangs from the ceiling in long strings of sausages - with garlic, chilli or truffles and, above all, Barolo wine, the home of the family butcher's shop. The flavour is so intense and fine because the salami matures for eight weeks.

Cheese with cornflowers or Pepe affumicato

The large cheese stand from CRA Formaggi Italia is a feast for the eyes. Round bales of cheese with a colourful aromatic coating are lined up behind the display case. "This is a soft cheese made from cow's milk that we developed and is only available from us," explains Sara Buccelli, the 30-year-old daughter in the family business that her father Claudio set up in the northern Italian town of Castelleone in the province of Cremona. The inside is the same for all varieties. The edible shell consists of roses, cornflowers and lemon blossom, for example. Or saffron, pepe affumicato and chives. Or chives, turmeric, onion, dill and ginger. Or "simply" from truffles. All products can also be ordered in the online shop and are delivered to Germany and Austria.

Truffles in all variations

Lenzi Tartufi has a very classy look. Owner Salvatore Lenzi specialised in truffles 30 years ago. In Italy, he runs two shops in his home town of Bagnoli Irpino and in Sorrento and supplies restaurants and supermarkets with his goods. At the Green Week, people stand in amazement in front of fresh black winter truffles and an almost endless selection of beautiful jars of truffle sauces, creams and truffle oil. Brand new in the programme: truffle-onion marmalade, truffle-nut cream and truffle-almond cream.

Almond biscuits in dozens of varieties

If you love Italian almond biscuits, the RS Feinkost stand is the right place for you - curiously, this is a company from Überlingen on Lake Constance that has bought an old bakery in Italy and has the traditional biscuits made there. There are crispy cannoli with eight different fillings, from vanilla or chocolate to salted caramel, pistachio or zabaglione. There are also sfogliatelle: puff pastry pockets filled with an egg and cream filling with chocolate, lemon or strawberry. And classic almond biscuits.

From Croatia to northern Germany

Even more beautiful things from southern Europe can be found in Hall 11.2: Walnut oil and rose water from Bulgaria, cornelian cherry jam from Romania, slivovice from Croatia - and a Greek-Croatian symbiosis from northern Germany: company boss Toni Celjak comes from Croatia, his wife from Greece, and they met in Husum. Under the motto "Taste the sun", they have been running their speciality shop "Ellas" in Bredstedt for over 30 years. They have brought multi-award-winning olive oil from Croatia, coffee-anise liqueur from Greece and creamy pastes made from cow's milk and herbs to Grüne Woche