This morning we visited the pig farm that supplies Amerigo restaurant with their fresh pork (maiale). It’s one of the only farms that both grows the pigs, and does the slaughtering and butchering (although they do have to separate the three processes so that they occur in different locations to prevent contamination). Today there were no knives involved – just live pigs. We met Beppe the farmer at the farm, and he took us to look at the pigs. He raises both regular pink pigs, and special black pigs, which taste better, and get much bigger. Amerigo *only* buys black pig meat from him – the pink pigs are not as tasty, apparently. I think the black pigs are also native to this region.
Here are some of the pink pigs. They were rather cute, in a Charlotte’s web kind of a way. I do think the head-on view is more attractive than the side view, though.
First we walked around to an enclosed pig pen, where there were about 15 pink pigs, and maybe 5 black ones. They were all quite fat – maybe these were going to be the next ones to be turned into pork products. But there were a lot more black ones up the hill, so we took a walk up the muddy street to the hillside pig pen. There we saw about 60 black pigs, of all different sizes.
He allows the pigs to graze on his land, and they eat any sort of vegetation they can get ahold of. He has an electric fence that he moves around so that they can forage in different places. Today it looked like they were pretty much lying the mud, and very happy about it. The largest one was upwards of 300 kg (661 pounds). These were so heavy that they were incredibly clumsy – the ratio of legs to pig body didn’t seem right.
One of them was lying directly in the food trough, continuously eating. This is the one thing I’ve seen so far that I would not really aspire to. It didn’t look particularly fun to be a pig farmer, although I’m sure it has it’s benefits. Beppe was definitely a character, and urged us to return if we visited Italy again. He seemed to really enjoy giving a tour of his farm. It helps that we were interested and asked a lot of questions. I’m not sure we actually understood all of his answers, but we did tape the interview, so we can decipher it later if we want to learn more about black pigs.
The black pigs were pretty friendly, and would snuffle your palm hopefully. Once they figured out we didn’t have any snacks, they went back to pigging around. Occasionally one would get stepped on, and make a high-pitched squealing that would upset the whole pack. We asked the pig farmer Beppe, and he said they were as smart as dog. It was really hard to tell, except that their eyes looked more alert than other animals, like cows or sheep. I kept thinking of the pigs we saw being butchered. Dawn and I agreed that once you named a pig, the gig would be up — we couldn’t really kill it. So if I ever do raise pigs, they will have to remain nameless. My grandma did have a cow in her yard, and every few years, they would butcher the cow, and she’d get a new one. As little kids, we were really upset by this idea, but she said the cow lived a good life (there was an apple tree in it’s pen), and that was just how things go. I think I understand that better now…
On the way out of town, we drove though the town of “Lame” (pronounced lam-eh). We could not resist the obvious photo opportunity. Here Dawn does a Vanna White move with the sign. She said something so funny while I was walking over to the sign that I could barely stand up, as you may be able to see in the photo.
After the pig farm, we drove to a nearby national park called Rocca Malatina. There having been people living in that area since the middle ages. We drove down a windy road to a small parking area. There was a big tower there that Alberto told us was built to house swallows, which are considered to make a household lucky. Our two destinations were to climb to the top of the rocks, and to eat lunch at the Osteria, which was recommended by the chef.
First we found the path to the top of the rocks. We started off, and were stopped by a gentleman in an Italian National Park outfit, who told us we must buy “bigletti”, or tickets. That done, we started off again. The path wound around the tall rocks, and in many places, we were walking in stairs cut into the rock. There were some natural caves as well — here is Dawn clowning around in one.
Once we even climbed up metal ladder steps that were pounded into the rocks!
They believe the first people lived here during the Byzantine era. Along the way were handpainted signs (in Italian) that described the local flora and fauna, and the people who used to live there in medieval times. I really appreciate the time that went into making such beautiful custom signs.
When we reached the top, we took in the surrounding countryside, celebrated our climb, and started back down. These are not the rocks we climbed, but other rocks you can see from the top, and the view back down to the Osteria and surrounding buildings. There were a few people who seemed to live there, and someone had planted a vegetable garden as well.
At the bottom of the hill was a small, very cute Osteria that smelled of chocolate (perhaps something baking inside?). We asked if they were open for lunch, which they were. We shared some tagliatelle stuffed with ricotta with balsamic vinegar, and some game which we originally thought was deer, but upon examination of the tiny bones, decided was wild hare (very little ribs). They flavor was intense but wonderful, and perhaps will convince me to try cooking more than just chicken and fish. This was our table at the little restaurant. Pretty cute for a place to eat next to some huge rocks in a National Park. It really had a nice “been here forever” kind of rural charm.
We’ve eaten more different types of meat here than I think I’ve had in my life up to this point. Between Dawn and I, we have been game to try pretty much anything that’s put in front of us. Here are all of the things we’ve tried. Some of them have just been a single slide of something, or a little tiny bit. Here’s the list: wild boar (cingiale), rabbit (coniglio), rabbit liver, black pig, regular (pink) pig, raw pork shoulder, mature bacon (stagionatta), pork liver sausage (fegato), prosciutto, pancetta, venison sausage, wild hare, wood pigeon, cock (older male chicken), thrush (a tiny bird cooked whole that you eat with your fingers), goat (capra), Irish lamb, beef (bisteca), veal (vitello), mule salami, horse salami, and probably a few others things that we didn’t understand correctly, or have forgotten. All of it has been *most* excellent.
On the way home, we had one of our first partially clear days in Savigno – most of the time has been pretty foggy. The landscape we were driving past was stunning, and also peculiar – notice that the soil is dark red in parts, and then grey in other parts. We don’t really know what makes the colors change…
This afternoon we watched Sara make lasagna in the kitchen at Amerigo. Following the Slow Food tradition, she first made spinach pasta and rolled it out very thin. Then she made a white bechamel sauce, and heated some ragu that was made earlier from pork, pancetta, beef, carrots, onions, and garlic. She cut the handmade lasagna pasta into pieces just a little bigger than the pan, and then made 4 tiers of pasta, bechamel, ragu, and parmegano. It was simple, but a long process. After she finished the pasta for the restaurant, all of the kitchen staff were making miniature versions out of the leftovers. The ragu was *heavenly*, and clearly was what makes the dish special.
Tonight we are having a quick meal at a pizzeria, and going home to pack up. Tomorrow we head to Alba, home of the white truffle, for the last leg of our journey.
Today I laughed a lot, as you can see in this photo Dawn took of me in one of the caves.
