“I speared a sausage with my knife, bit off the end. Juice and fat exploded: the pork melted. I tasted chestnuts, moss, the bulbs of wild lilies, the roots and shoots of an Umbrian forest floor. There was pepper, of course, salt and garlic. Nothing else. I opened my eyes. The Proctor was staring at me, and quickly looked away. I thought I saw a smile cross his lips before he opened them to admit another wagon-load of lentils. I tried a spoonful myself. They were very small and brown- earthy-tasting, of course. That I had been expecting. But these were subtle: there was a hint of pine, which came partly from the rosemary that was obviously in the dish, but partly from the lentils themselves. I did feel as if I were eating soil, but a special kind: some sort of silky brown clay, perhaps; something that Maestro Donatello would have crossed oceans to sculpt with, or that my uncle Filippo would have used as a pigment to paint the eyes of a beautiful brown-eyed donna. Maybe this is what the earth under the finest hazelnut tree in Italy would taste like- but that, perhaps, was a question best put to a pig. "Make sure you chew properly," I mumbled, piling my plate high. The serving girl came back with a trencher of sliced pork meats: salami dotted with pink fat, ribbons of lardo, peppery bacon. The flavors were slippery, lush, like copper leaf or the robe of a cardinal. I coiled a strip of dark, translucent ham onto my tongue: it dissolved into a shockingly carnal mist, a swirl of truffles, cinnamon and bottarga.” FlavorsMeatsEarthySense Of TasteLentilsSausages Book:Appetite Source: Appetite
“It was a good-sized trout, opened out, salted, pressed, floured and fried. The entrails had been cooked with some vinegar and mint, mashed up and spooned onto the plate as a sort of afterthought. It was delicious: simple and honest. I ate it all, and didn't give a single thought for what it might do to my humors. I sucked every bone, washed it down with some thick, spicy red wine- peasants' wine- from the hills above the town. I knew that I was tasting the place itself: the fish from the river I had crossed on my way into the town, the pig that had rooted in the woods I had ridden through, olives grown a short walk away. The pig had snuffled under the pine trees whose nuts had adorned its sausages. I had eaten the land. The town itself will always be nameless in my memory, but even now I can assemble it from its flavors, because I have never forgotten any of them. A meal of pigs' liver and fish, served with apologies.” PigsLiverTroutSeasoningsFood And WineSurf And TurfSense Of TasteSausagesPerugia Book:Appetite Source: Appetite
“One day they let me knead the ingredients for sausage meat, and the raw foods themselves seized me: lean pork and soft, white fat- The one talks to the other, said Carenza. Without the fat, the lean is too dry, and without the lean... she stuck out her tongue, too much. I grated some cheese: dry pecorino that had been in our larder for months, and some fresh marzolino, tasting both. Mace went in, and cinnamon, and black pepper. How much salt? Mamma showed me in the palm of her hand, Let me sweep it into the bowl. Then she broke some eggs onto the mixture. This is my secret, she said, and grated the rind of an orange so that the crumbs covered everything in a thin layer of gold. Do you want to mix it, Nino? Almost laughing with excitement, I plunged my fingers through the cold silkiness of the eggs, feeling the yolks pop, then made fists deep inside the meat. I could smell the orange, the pork, the cheese, the spices, and then they started to melt together into something else. When it was all mixed together I licked my fingers, though Carenza slapped my hand away from my mouth, and after we'd stuffed them into the slimy pink intestines and cooked up a few for ourselves, I discovered how the fire had changed the flavors yet again. The clear, fresh taste of the pork had deepened and intensified, while the cool blandness of the fat had changed into something rich and buttery that held the spices and the orange zest. And the salt seemed to have performed this magic, because it was everywhere, but at the same time hardly noticeable.” CookingIngredientsSpicesCheesesSense Of TasteSausages Book:Appetite Source: Appetite