Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (35 page)

By Alexey Pivovarov / Prospekt

Prospekt is a Milan-based independent photo agency representing photojournalists based in Milan, Rome, Paris, London, Istanbul, Berlin, and New York. Prospekt photographers work on European and international news and features. Founded in early 2005 and directed by the photographer Samuele Pellecchia, Prospekt aims to produce surveys and reports bringing out of the value of each photographer's identity.

Overall, Umbria is a kind of preserve for saints. St. Benedict, founder of Western European monasticism, was born in Norcia in
A.D.
480. Seven centuries after Benedict, St. Francis led part of this monastic movement (the Friars Minor) on the path to apostolic-missionary asceticism, in many ways similar to the path of his older contemporary Peter Waldo, who founded the Waldensian community in Valle d'Aosta. St. Clare, founder of the Order of Poor Clares, was also from Umbria. The population, infected by its saints' mystical ecstasy, built worthy temples for them. The Romanesque cathedrals of this region are indescribable, from Norcia to Orvieto, from Spoleto to Assisi and Gubbio, their interiors covered from top to bottom with frescoes by Giotto, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Luca Signorelli.

In May a medieval costume feast is held in Assisi. Wild boar is roasted on a spit
in the piazza and spelt soup is distributed. And it is precisely from the wild boars, which graze freely in the dark forests, that the principal typical product of Umbria is obtained: wild boar prosciutto.

Umbria is sparsely populated, so breeding and farming here are not intensive. Food is traditionally derived from the meadows, lakes, and woods. Even the cooking untensils are provided ready-made by nature. The flatbread
al testo
(the local focaccia) is cooked on a
testo
, or disk, in the past made from river gravel (now mainly of cast iron).

The best Umbrian food is sometimes referred to as “black gold,” a name that designates equally well the black wild boar prosciutto and the black truffles typical of this region. The white truffle is also present: in Val Tiberina, in Orvieto, and in Eugubino-Gualdese. The famous black truffle flourishes in Norcia and in Spoleto. Among the truffles, the winter and the so-called muscat varieties are recognized.

In general, there is such kindhearted spirit here that people would rather take milk and eggs from domestic animals than butcher them. It is no coincidence that this proverb was born in Umbria: “If a farmer eats a chicken, it means that one of the two was not well.” This principle does not apply to pigs, since neither eggs nor milk is obtained from a pig. A pig can only be eaten, and the noble art of pork processing is so rooted in Umbria that throughout Italy those who specialize in pig butchering are called
norcini
, from the town of Norcia.

The prosciuttos of Norcia are the undisputed pride of this region. In Umbria (though in the rest of Italy as well) it is said that no part of the pig is wasted. Some parts are consumed fresh, others made into sausage and enjoyed a few days later, still others cured. The leg, the part from which prosciutto is obtained, is aged. The prosciutto, after a long, exacting process, is dry-salted and kept in salt for about a month. The salt, wisely administered, serves to dehydrate (“drain”) the meat. After this first phase, the formerly fresh leg is washed, then reshaped, seasoned with pepper and garlic, and hung for the long drying period (along with many other future prosciuttos) in an environment with a constant temperature.

After seven to eight months, the prosciutto is ready for “puttying”: the
norcino
butcher fills the cracks formed on the leg with
assogna
or “stucco,” a product made from fatty substances. Afterward the two key factors in this art must do their work: salt and time.

This is how
capocollo
ham, salami, head cheese, sausage, loin sausage, “pocket”
prosciuttini
, and the famous “mule's testicles” are born.

Porchetta
(roast pork), on the other hand, is a whole pig stuffed with entrails, fennel, and herbs. It is also eaten between meals (as a
porchetta
sandwich) and sold everywhere in markets, at concerts, at gatherings. I personally recall an unforgettable sight in Turin in May 2006: among the crammed book stands of the Salone del Libro, three men, panting, dragged an enormous
porchetta
dripping with fat over to the Umbrian booth, rendering the traditional party that Umbrian publishers open to everyone even more festive. The huge
porchetta
is made up of an entire pig or two, their skins sewn together to form a single body with one head. The entire thing is stuffed with smoked meat, pancetta. Although the party was taking place in an unusual setting of elite culture, it seemed identical to the
sagre
held in all Italian towns. The
porchetta
's head had an amiable expression and seemed to be observing the newly printed titles stretching as far as the eye could see in the nearby stands. The neck and body of the
porchetta
appeared exaggeratedly long, as if in a previous life it had been a dragon rather than a pig. Could it have been stretching its neck out of curiosity?

Here in Umbria there is an inland sea, Lake Trasimeno, and a great abundance of streams. The Tiber also flows through Umbrian territory. Freshwater fish such as carp and trout are caught in the clear local waters (Umbria has almost no factories), often with a fishing line, along with several varieties of carp, trout, vairone, roach, chub, ray-finned carp, rudd, perch, grayling, barbel, bleak, tench, and even eels.

The great number of monasteries scattered along the medieval pilgrim routes lends the Umbrian landscape an aura of physical and spiritual welfare, of serenity. It is not surprising that even the political history of this region confirms its image of scant aggression.

The cities of Umbria have never been powerful. They had no access to the sea, they had no colonies or ports, they did not engage in manufacturing and trading. But though far from centers of power and from economic interests, free communes developed here from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries: Perugia, Assisi, Foligno, Spoleto, Terni, Orvieto, Gubbio. And even in the years that followed, the region tried to maintain a certain peaceful neutrality amid Italian fighting.

 

When we are getting ready to cook and open a book of recipes, we expect to find instructions that will explain which ingredients to combine with others and in what sequence. There is, however, another aspect to the matter, one we're assumed to have learned elsewhere: the preparation methods, which are not described in Italian cookbooks. Everyone learns these methods in the home. Thus disputes often arise among partisans of different culinary beliefs. For example, those surrounding Milanese-style risotto, a topic on which everything has been said and resaid, or so it would appear. Yet there is no unanimity of opinion as to these preparation methods. Should Milanese risotto be cooked in an aluminum pot or one of unglazed earthenware? Should it be stirred constantly, or given only one brisk stir at the beginning, never taking one's eyes off the rice as it cooks, until it is removed from the heat? Should the onion be browned in it or not? When should the cheese be added: while the risotto is still simmering or after the heat is turned off? Should the rice be sprinkled with wine to refine the flavor, before beginning to periodically ladle in the broth? Participation in these disputes necessitates a smattering of chemistry, history, and ethnography, and requires knowledge of classical literature, as well as aesthetic sensibility and intuition.

The Italian culinary tradition is so rich that cooking methods that have an exotic, fascinating effect on the eye—especially the eye of a foreigner—form a rather long list. Deliberately excluded from this list are techniques of agricultural and industrial food processing; we will consider only those operations that must sooner or later be confronted when cooking at home: