La Fettunta

La Fettunta as someone kindly pointed out to me means 'oily slices' though it could also mean 'annointed slices' which sounds more appetising. Yesterday the employees of Villa i Tatti along with some of their families were invited to what was called 'La Fettunta'. Ostensibly it was a lunch to celebrate the arrival of the 'olio nuovo' - something I hadn't heard of before arriving here - but was also an event for those employees who don't usually get to eat much of what comes out of the I Tatti kitchens.

Although bottles of oil were available for us to pour onto our slices of bread, the main attraction (for me at least) were the large platters and pans conatining the hot food and the porchetta. It was a cold day and we were eating outside so the steaming ribollita and pappa al pomodoro were very welcome. I'd missed the actual barbecuing of the meat but there was plenty left for me to overdose on. Tuscan sausage, chicken portions, and the ribs that are very common around these parts. All coated in salt - a seasoning missing in their bread but made up for in virtually everything else. [And it's so cheap! 11 cents for a kilo of sea salt in our local supermarket].

The ribs are grilled unadorned (salt excepted), so the finished product is a gnaw off the bone experience as opposed to the US style where the meat falls from the bone. Still good nonetheless.

A large part of the fettunta is to say thank you to the non academic staff of the Villa. So the gardeners, cleaners, and construction workers were all there and tucking in. Bottles of I Tatti's Colli Chianti and plastic cups were rested on tractor trailers and much oil sloshed over the bread.

As I said, all the meat had finished cooking by the time I arrived but the fires were still warm and bread was put on to toast. Garlic cloves were provided for rubbing on it before the oil was poured to annoint it.

The limbless pig you can see in the picture is (a/the) porchetta. I'll put my hands up and say I knew nothing of porchetta before coming to Florence. Even though I had visited Tuscany twice before. Back home in Cambridge my friends at the Art of Meat prepare a cut of pork that they call porchetta. Really it is more like 'arista' a skinless rolled loin seasoned with chilli, rosemary, fennel, and garlic. Here, it is basically a small pig with everything except bones and limbs.

The real porchetta is described thus in the Oxford Companion to Italian Food:

Porchetta is the name of a whole boned and roast young pig, of about 50 kilos, a speciality of central Italy, and much loved in Umbria and Lazio, where it is sold from stalls at fairs and festivals. The skin is singed, scalded, and shaved, and the pig boned, the carcass seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and wild fennel, then stuffed with its prepared entrails, sewn up, roasted slowly in a wood fired bread oven, and usually eaten cold.

The ones I have seen have had no legs, which are presumably removed to make hams and sausages. I've eaten quite a bit since getting here. The best (and most expensive - €25/Kg) I had was from the Mercato Sant Ambrogio.  The one in the pics wasn't the best I have eaten but it was good and it was the first time I had eaten some of the liver from inside which was obviously a treat.

Towards the end of proceedings people started to take clean plates up with the intention of taking some of the beast home. I inevitably had to join the queue and was given a good chunk to feast on for lunch today.

It was a great lunch time gathering in a cold but beautiful part of the world. I just wish it could have continued a little longer into the afternoon. But apparently some people have to work. Who'd a thunk it?