Let's Talk About a Real Sin of Gluttony: the Italian Porchetta.

By Xxlauraxx @all4italy

porchetta


If one day I were to end up in Dante's Inferno, the circle where I would be catapulted  is that of the gluttons  -I'm sure. Eating is a pleasure especially if you taste the good food –always  respecting  the health and therefore not exaggerating.   Let's talk about a real sin of gluttony: the porchetta. Have you ever heard about it ? Porchetta is a product that we could consider a cold cut and its origins cannot be traced back. The pigs should be bred properly, to make a good porchetta. I believe that a good result should have the right conditions from the beginning. An improper breeding will give us  an unsatisfactory final product. The handmade product are more genuine. The meat -after being selected and  cleaned-  is flavored with the salt, the rosemary, the spices, the pepper and sometimes a  little branch of the  fennel. The cooking is a very important stage for the final result . The pork is cooked on a spit and then in the oven. The porchetta  should be eaten on the same day when it is cooked. If it is well preserved, it can last up to a week.  The porchetta was a food for the rich medieval lords. Today you can enjoy it every day and it  is an indispensable  element in the local festivals. When I was a child, I used to go in Emilia Romagna with my parents  for the summer holiday .The evening of the local festival -  between a mazzurca and a tarantella playing by a local  little orchestra on the square full of people- I remember my binges of sandwiches with porchetta.  The problem of the diet did not concerned me and I ate porchetta in industrial quantities.

panino con porchetta

Norcia is a famous place where the porchetta is produced. In this beautiful area of ​​Umbria, the profession of  the butcher is an art that has its roots in the tradition and it still respects the old parameters of the meat processing. This is the guarantee of the  product quality. The origins of the porchetta? An open debate. Some say that it is Umbria the original place , others  says that the Etruscans already eaten it, others say that in Abruzzo there are the evidences of this food since the ancient times, while the Arriccia’s inhabitants in Lazio claim the fatherhood  of the porchetta. Plutarch wrote about Lucius Licinius Lucullus,a Roman general and described  his banquet alluding to the porchetta as one of the foods present on the table. The ancient Romans were good connoisseurs!  They were known for their copious lunchs! In any case, you can enjoy the porchetta when you are very hungry, it is a satisfying food! You can eat it, drinking a glass of red good wine and you can  indulge in the pleasure of this typical food of central Italy.