The Fat and The Fattoria of the Land

Sometimes, life in Italy can be awkward. Like when you invite some Italians over for lunch. You warn them that it will be an English style Sunday roast. You present them with some roast pork; it doesn’t have crackling; it is 30% fat and then you completely fail to carve it properly. They explain to you that you are doing it all wrong and that you should have cut your joint up into chops and that you can by a suckling pig at the central market.

In England, you cock up your Sunday roast and your guests say: ‘No, this is lovely. Thanks ever so much.’ Not until they leave and are out of earshot would they pass comment on your inability to serve them a proper meal. Maybe honesty is a good thing. Sometimes it is unwelcome.

To be fair to myself and to my guests, it was perhaps a little risky to pre-order a piece of meat, from a breed of pig I hadn’t cooked with before, without having seen it. But it was all part of a bigger plan (and a bigger meat order). To go back to Chianti; to meet my Twitter buddy Ray; to see his pigs and to buy his pork. Sunday lunch was always going to be an afterthought.

Twitter has been good to me over here. Tips on sightseeing and tourism, cooking advice, banter with other English speakers (something in very short supply outside the house). It keeps me connected to the UK and it helps me navigate my way through daily Tuscan life. And Twitter led me to Ray.

Ray has a large estate in Chianti just outside the town of Castellina. Way back when, he set up Tuscan Enterprises, a villa rental agency, from there and now he also runs his estate where he raises the traditional Tuscan pig: the Cinta Senese. He turns this pork into delicious salume, he grows olives for oil and produces very good Chianti too.

On our arrival, the beautiful location was at its best with a clear blue sky; the remnants of the previous week’s snow-fall adding interest for the kids. Ray was waiting for us and his wife, Rita, had prepared prosciutto, salami, oil and bread for tasting.

After baby feeding and chat, Ray took me into the ‘laboratorio’ (an Italian word used for most small food production premises as well as craft workshops) the building where his pigs are butchered and the cured products are made. From the outside it had the appearance of an old stables block but inside were very modern climate controlled curing rooms and a spotless butchery.

He led me around these rooms showing me hams and salamis at different stages of production. All walls clad in hygienic plastic that I know well from the smokery. Despite its history and rustic image, nearly all salami and ham are cured in these very modern surroundings nowadays. Environmental legislation dictates it. Even with no one working there, we weren’t allowed to go into the main meat processing area lest it be contaminated.

The main ingredients or these products are reared a stones throw away. The piglets and younger pigs are housed in 2 barns where they are kept under a watchful eye until they are ready to be released out into the outdoor rearing areas. So we went to see the mums and their squeaky and timid piglets keeping warm under IR lamps.

Outside, the ground was rocky, wet, and muddy; the few pigs we saw seemed content splodging around under the oak trees. Though Ray explained that they don’t like the wet very much. 

The photo is of Pippo who Ray told us liked to show off by walking over rocky areas that were particularly hazardous and uncomfortable for them.

The Cinta Senese is a rare breed or heritage breed that was bred back from near extinction in the late 90s. It has a black coat with a white saddle or ‘cinta’. In the UK we have saddlebacks and Essex pigs that look a little like them. There is lots more info on Ray’s site.

Returning to the old farmhouse, we were treated to an assaggiare of prosciutto, salami, oil, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic shoots, aubergines in oil, and good bread. This was accompanied by the three wines that are produced from the farm. Conversation and wine flowed. The prosciutto was sweet and fatty, tender and delicious. So too the salami and the soft, fatty finochiona that came home in the car with me and which has disappeared quickly.

Although we spent most of our time their talking about the products and the farm, I never got round to asking Ray why he ran the farm and raised the pigs. He told me there was little or no money in it. This is something that I have heard from another Tuscan farmer and a story not uncommon in the UK. Though Ray doesn’t appear as to be a wide-eyed idealist who is striving for that mythical old Tuscan simplicity.

Despite having been here for 6 months, I am very much a novice on Italian salume but I think I am beginning to understand the difference between good and bad. I know that the better finocciona over here is very soft and that my favourite hams are sweeter. Beyond that I am need of education I think.

Over here in Italy I am regularly confronted with walls or racks full of hams and salumi. I find the choice overwhelming and confusion reigns when choosing what to buy. Having a plate presented to you, ready sliced, with no choice allows you to forget about the selection process and to concentrate on the flavour and the texture. Which is what I did at Ray’s and was well rewarded.

After a long and easy chat over the wine and salume, we packed up the kids and headed off over the Tuscan hills. Back home, I unwrapped my meat purchases and was presented with a very fat loin of pork, a piece of guanciale, an uncured pig jowl, a whole finochiona, and heaps of sausages. A true pork fest.

You know what happened to the loin. The jowl was cooked for about 8 hours and is currently maturing in a kind of fatty, 5spicey, appley sludge destined for some fat noodles. The guanciale has been started and will likely last me until we move out of here. The finochiona has almost all gone.

And, the sausages? Well, see for yourself: