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Start your day with a cappuccino and get into the Italian state of mind as we talk about our favorite winter activity - sausage & salami making! Jason shares our simple recipe and explains how simple sausage making is. Currently there are 90 kilos of meat curing in the rafters upstairs! We laugh as we retell stories of Doctor Gaggi & his impromptu sausage tests he gives Jason, not ready to hand-over the reigns. Chat about the 'charm's of country living in the winter - it may be romantic stone farmhouse, but its hard as hell to heat! We recap some of winters events and don't miss the fitting word of the week.

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Podcast from Italy: Episode 29 - Sausage & Salami Making, Strikes in Italy

Food for Thought: A 12 yr old learns the true price of food, taking the "Omnivore’s Dilemma" to heart.

I recently received an extraordinarily eloquent email from a former guest & cooking class student, twelve year old Noah, sharing his emotional experience slaughtering a chicken at camp. (We met Noah & the rest of his family last year when they came to cook, he was one of the most engaged & well-informed students we ever had, no matter the age.) This is worth the read and even more amazing when you realize he is just a kid, who understands more about where his food comes from & his connection to it than most adults grocery shopping for their families.

His words perfectly capture my feelings, not only the heart-pounding experience of our first chicken slaughter but why we proudly raise our animals to eat.

Here is an excerpt of Noah's essay:

"Life is a journey, ups and downs included. Along that way, sudden realizations spring across your path, and there is no other option but to experience and consequently be changed by them. One of those striking moments happened to me at Farm and Wilderness camp last summer, when I slaughtered a chicken.

Without electricity and not much  contact with the outside world, growing our own food was a necessity, and that  included slaughtering our own meat. Doubtfully, I scribbled my name on a list  spotted with grimy fingerprints, feeling like it was my own death sentence  instead of a bird's. One misty Sunday later I stood under a tent, watching  others kill, pluck, and butcher their chickens. The line shortened, and suddenly  I was next. The chicken was on the stump, its fiery plumage dully gleaming with  the glare of midday.  My axe was raised, and I swung. I will never forget what it felt like. The axe burrowed deep into the wood, and where a living thing stood  before there was now just unprocessed meat.

With tears on  my face, we went through the process, and in less than 10 minutes, a  living chicken was turned into one of the carcasses that are kept in the refrigerated meats section at a grocery store. This was the true price of food, a lesson hard learned but important. After, I saw the food on my plate with more gratitude and respect than before. I decided  that, as a chicken eater, I should experience how it gets on my plate. Before camp, I had never made the connection between "farm and fork." Chickens, as well as other meats and produce, went into one end of the agribusiness factories as raw materials and came out the other end as things I could eat. I had read the Omnivore's Dilemma for Kids many times, but to see what was meticulously described was completely different. I realized what the true price of food was and it isn't $3.99 a pound.
It is hours of work, having to get up at  6:00 am on cold rainy mornings to feed the chickens, and, ultimately, an animal's life. To quote Michael Pollan, "meat doesn't come in sealed plastic  bags."  But with that understanding came another feeling, a feeling of pride. Not  because I had killed a chicken, but because I had taken responsibility for  eating it. I had no longer averted my eyes while someone else slaughtered the chicken I ate, and no longer paid someone else for taking care of it for four months. I took full responsibility for that chicken's life and I had every right to eat it. Before I felt guilty because I had benefited in the results of  others work while never doing the work myself, but now I was as qualified as anyone.

It took hours of work, countless mornings getting up at still-dark  hours, and the life of a chicken for me to feel proud about what I eat and learn the true price of food. It is a lesson that should be learned by all people living on Earth, because it's what is keeping us alive.
For now, my conscience  and my stomach are both satisfied."
-Noah the Foodie


That coming from a 12 year old! Noah continues to take weekly cooking  lasses and it seems that his interest in food and cooking is just growing  stronger! He may just be the next Michael Pollan....

The Italian Einstein of cheese, Vittorio Beltrami, recognized as one of the best, most well-respected & charismatic cheese makers from the Marche region graciously invited us to a special event, centuries old, at the Beltrami oil mill in Cartoceto - the unearthing of the famous formaggio di fossa (pit-aged cheese).

Formaggio di Fossa is considered one of the most delicious culinary rarities from Romagna and Marche. According to legend, it seems that the origin of the cheese dates back to the 1400’s when farmers would defend themselves & their supplies by hiding in pits. Then months later after the war ended & the cheese was unearthed they were met with a flavorful surprise! 

Centuries later the method of cheese curing is still practiced. In late August the cheese is prepared and placed in cloth bags. The pits are dug to a depth of several meters and then filled with wheels of cheese and beds of straw. Then the pits are sealed with a wooden lid and then plaster atop. The cheese remains underground for 90 days during which it acquires the characteristic aroma of moss, sulfur and truffle making it incredibly pungent & unique. The pits are open for the feast of St. Catherine and the cheese is removed.

Freshly removed cheese from the pit, formaggio di fossa in Le Marche, Italy
We descend into the cavern that houses the pits below the floor, the air fills with musty mold and cold stone. We peer deep into the the hole amazed that such a simple thing - literally a pit, can create the perfect climate to create a delicious & unique tasting & smelling cheese.  Because of this rich flavor it is best to eat this cheese with fruit & honey, broken into wedges with bread or grated atop pasta and pairs perfect with crisp Pecorino or a rich round red like a Lacrima Superiore.

As Vittorio address the room, he proudly acknowledges the work of his sheep without them there would be no cheese, he looks up with a smile & trademark twinkle in his eyes!

Lunch lasted more than 3 hours of cheeses with apples, lentil soup, panzanella, pasta with formaggio di fossa and you guessed it, cheese for dessert. We helped ourselves to bottles of local wine - reds, whites & rose, just grab a bottle & bring it to your table. At one point Vittorio enters the room and introduces an artisan pasta maker from the region thanking him for contributing to lunch, proclaiming how pasta was first created in Le Marche! I don’t know if its true, but he got the reaction he was looking for - knowing nods of approval, as if to say "Of course pasta was made here!"

Like Jason & I, Vittorio is not only proud of what he produces, but of all the other fabulous artisans surrounding him - if there was a theme to this lunch it was all things local: local apples, local lentils, local wine, local bread, local produce, local people. And this is wonderfully typical in Le Marche.

The atmosphere was festive & flavorful - filled with pride for all the delicious treasures this region has to offer!

  No matter what time of year, it is worth a visit to Gastronomia Beltrami to meet the Beltrami family, taste their delicious cheeses and discover a true Italian artisan and culinary legend at work. Cheese Master Vittorio Beltrami also produces extra virgin olive oil with selected olives grown and harvested in Cartoceto as well as jams and jellies prepared to suit each individual cheeses unique flavor.

If you are visiting Italy in the fall, then don't miss Cartoceto (Le Marche) on the last Sunday of November to take part in Vittorio Beltrami’s pit-opening; his pits are located on the site of the Frantoio della Rocca. It will be an unforgettable experience!

(Read this post with photos: http://www.latavolamarche.blogspot.com/ … -from.html)

Home ground, stuffed & cured meat makes me happy!

It's our fourth year making homemade sausages, salami, lonzo & prosciutto, slowly curing the meats over the winter from the rafters of our farmhouse in Italy. Read stories from past years: Meat Curing 101: Homemade Sausages & Salami  and Charcuterie in Italy: 150lbs of Sausages & Salami

Well, you'd think we were from Texas because our slogan seems to be: go big or go home! And we tend to go BIG especially when it comes to meat. Walk into one of the bedrooms on the 2nd floor and you'd think you entered a meat locker. The smell draws you in and you eyes can't imagine it to be true - row upon row of sausage links dangling from the rafters - a mighty meaty view if you were lying in bed!

This year we have more meat to cure than ever as the requests have been pouring in from friends & neighbors requesting 10 kilos at a time on-top of our normal allotment for guests, dinners & gifts. So this year we are doing it in batches making over 200 lbs in total!

Round 1: 50 kilos of sausages: ground, stuffed & hanging to cure.
Reward: Dinner is on - fresh made sausages, grilled on iron in the kitchen fireplace!!
There's no place like home...