This week, my husband, Erik, is a guest blogger and writes about his return to Italy – and his favorite dish of all time – papperdelle al cinghiale.
My daughter and I like to play a game where one of us thinks of a topic, say reptile, and the other has to guess the name of the reptile, in this example, a lizard. When we arrived in Florence, Italy, last summer, I said to her, “I am thinking of a pig.” She guessed warthog, razorback, and domestic pig. All wrong. I was thinking of cinghiale.
Cinghiale, or wild boar, is a Tuscan delight. It has a slightly gamier taste than run of the mill pork, and is usually a bit spicier when cooked into the dishes. My favorite is papperdelle al cinghiale.
Wild boars are prevalent in Italy and have been eaten for centuries. With the migration from marginal farmlands to the cities in the 1950s, the cinghiale’s only real predator was removed and the boars flourished in rural areas. Hunting clubs, similar to those for deer in the US, were formed to keep the population in check.
Like most meat or fish, wild is the best. The most flavorful cinghiale are those that are hunted in their natural environment, where they have consumed a diet rich in acorns. Commercial farming of cinghiale is widespread, but fortunately for connoisseurs, there is still a plentiful supply of wild “wild boar.”
Which brings me to Tuscany, the culinary capital of cinghiale. I had my first taste in 2006 in Florence, when my father-in-law introduced me to papperdelle al cinghiale. On our most recent trip to Italy, I was eager to have it again. From the moment we arrived in town, I began looking at menus in restaurants to find a place that served my favorite dish.
I walked across the Arno, hungry after a day of travel and stumbled upon the Cinghiale Bianco, the restaurant at which I had first tried the wild meat six years before. I sat down for dinner with my family, and my wife and I both ordered the papperdelle al cinghiale – our daughter had a pesto dish. However, once she tasted our cinghiale, she was hooked, another convert!
Pilgrimage would be too strong a word to describe the sensation of coming back to the Cinghiale Bianco. But sitting in the dark wood interior, a plate of steaming pasta in front of me, I had to pause and be thankful for the opportunity to discover new things, even well into adulthood, and for the ability to return to places that we love, and to share these joys with our children.
After our meal, my daughter looked at me grinning. “Daddy, I’m thinking of a pig,” she said. “Cinghiale?” I asked.
Osteria Del Cinghiale Bianco can be found at Borgo S. Jacopo, 43 r., 50125 Florence, Italy, open from 18:30 – 22:30, closed Wednesdays. Tel. 055 215706
