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Indo-European
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Haarmann (1994, 277) notes that the original homeland of the Uralic people—situated geographically in a region near the middle Volga around the basin of the Kama and Vyatka—is not under dispute, although there is some designation over how far west it extended.

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Anthony 2007
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For my convenience (or yours)
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Lardo
But Colonnata is a major stop on a different kind of itinerary, one connecting the famous meat towns of Italy: Langhirano, above Parma, where the best prosciutto is cured; nearby Felino, the source of an exquisite salame; Norcia, the remote Umbrian center of both monasticism (St. Benedict and St. Scholastica were born there) and of cured pork; the area north of Arezzo, where grilled Florentine steaks reach their apogee at places like Hostaria Costachiara and Il Canto del Maggio; and Panzano, where the butcher Cecchini recently opened a restaurant, Solociccia, that specializes in dozen-course family dinners consisting almost entirely of lesser cuts of Chianti-style beef. Some wine fetishists like to talk about the mystical feeling that comes across them when they sip a glass of wine overlooking the vineyards in which the wine was grown, but there can be an even stronger sense of terroir in the meat towns, where the essence of the local products almost seems to ooze through the buildings, where the air itself smells of flesh, salt and time.

Speck

 * Eugenia Bone 10.30.06


 * The hams of Italy's lovely Alto Adige region have been cured to perfection.

Speck, the cured ham of Alto Adige, Italy's northernmost province, has the distinction of being one of the least-known world-class charcuterie products. That's probably because until the year before last, you couldn't buy it in the United States, and speck comes from a region that not many folks visit. Basically, word just hasn't traveled beyond a relatively small circle.

That's a good thing for you and me, because Alto Adige is all the more beautiful for being somewhat undiscovered. Bordering Austria to the north, the landscape is a breathtaking combination of rich valley land planted with apple trees and vineyards that climb the skirts of the glamorous, snowcapped Dolomites. Dour medieval castles crumble on every promontory, and the farms and villages are charming and tidy (even video stores have window boxes full of roses). It has a unique food scene derived from both Austrian and Italian culinary styles, and is one of Italy's premier wine regions, though also its smallest. The smooth streets are designed for sports cars, and the local people, unlike their fellow citizens farther south, are delighted to share their restaurants and roads with travelers. Alto Adige is relatively free of rumpled day-trippers and their sundry accommodations: There are no McDonald's, few souvenir shops and no menus in English. Every sign is written in both German and Italian, in recognition of the region's historic cultural mix. That Alto Adige is the best of both worlds becomes clear if you've ever tried to buy a stamp in Italy, or pined for a little elegance in Germany. Here, the trains run on time, and you can get a fabulous panini in the station. Austria ceded Südtirol to Italy after World War I. It was joined to Italian Trentino, and the two provinces now make up Trentino--Alto Adige. Of the one million residents, about 70 percent speak the local German dialect. But rather than seek to reconnect with the fatherland, the Südtiroleans lean toward the more sumptuous embrace of Mediterranean culture.

An appropriate metaphor for this cozy duality is the ham. Speck Alto Adige (the full and proper name of the product, and not to be confused with German Speck, which is lard, called lardo in Italian and also " prosciutto bianco" by Mario Batali) combines the good, strong smoky quality of Germany's Black Forest ham with the yielding tenderness of San Daniele prosciutto. It may seem a little shabby to use the hind leg of a hog to describe a place, but not if you've tasted this hog.

My friend the Tuscan photographer Paolo Destefanis and I sat at an outdoor table at Restaurant Kuppelrain in Castelbello, looking over the red haze of a rose garden at a handsome medieval castle perched on a tremendous rock. Kuppelrain is well-known. The chef, Jörg Trafojer, and his wife, the sommelier Sonja, have enjoyed a Michelin star for the last six years, and serve to capacity every night, but it still feels like a private place, a secret find, so intimate is the service and ambiance. To whet our appetites, Sonja served us a glass of Arunda Reserve Brut, produced by Joseph Reiterer in the tiny town of Mölten, the highest-altitude sparkling wine cellar in Europe, garnished with elderberry flowers that stuck to the insides of our glasses like little stars. Just as we were settling into a state of nirvana, out came Jörg, a brooding man who looks like Kurt Cobain, carrying a slab of polished white dolomite marble. On it was a selection of tiny dishes made with speck. We ate a glistening sweet wine gelatin that held a silver dollar of foie gras wrapped in a skin of speck; white asparagus ice cream with thin, crispy speck chips; a kind of speck maki stuffed with herbed ricotta; green asparagus wrapped in a speck envelope; and a combination of tiny sautéed apple balls garnished with minced speck. Each dish was delicious and provocative yet remained true to the local culinary vernacular--the mark of a great chef. (The rest of the meal was equally delightful: venison carpaccio on a bed of garden cress and cornflowers, and veal with mustard and wild onions served with ruby-red lagrein wine like Abbazia di Novacella or Cantina Producttori Cortaccia and fruit foams of elderberry and apricot.)

Just about every little farm or destination-type restaurant in the region makes its own speck. So do many elegant salumerie--the Italian version of a delicatessen--in the main towns of Merano and Bolzano, but only two companies are permitted to sell their product in the United States: Recla in Silandro and Senfter in San Cardido.

Speck is a true synthesis of two curing styles: salting from the Mediterranean and smoking from central Europe (it represents the southernmost smoking tradition in Europe). Like prosciutto, speck is made from the hind leg of the pig, but it's boned before curing and the meat is rubbed with spices as well as salt. "This mix of spices is each producer's secret," Franz Recla told me gravely when we visited the company's plant. "I cannot tell you what ours is." (Later, however, a young, clearly reckless Recla executive willingly revealed the family formula: laurel, juniper, rosemary, caraway, fennel, garlic and pepper.) The meat rests for two weeks, is lightly smoked for five days and then seasoned for five months. During this period natural molds develop as the humidity in the meat is purged (losing up to 40 percent of its weight). The mold "rounds the flavor," announced Recla's cellar master. He looked like he would know. A stocky guy in rubber boots, he had spices all over the bib of his white apron, as if he had been hugging the speck, and he smelled like pepper.

A friend from Friuli recently told me the secret to speck is the cold, dry air--about the millionth time I'd heard that. Indeed, the air of Alto Adige, even in the big towns, is noticeably clean and fresh. "The air plays a huge role," says Robert Deiaco, chef at the Rainbow Room in New York and an Alto Adige native.

The end result is a product that is creamy in texture, intensely flavored and significantly different from prosciutto. "Speck is so much better than a good prosciutto," says Deiaco. "You can really taste the flavors of juniper berries and laurel leaves." Speck Alto Adige is imported by Savello USA, a Pennsylvania-based company that brought the first San Daniele prosciutto into the U.S. in 1997, the first Italian tuna fish, Callipo from Calabria, in 2001, the first Italian bresaolo in 2000 and is "on standby for pancetta, " according to Savello president Cesare Gallo. "I went for speck because speck is necessary to complete the salumeria."

About 60 different specks are produced for retail in Alto Adige, and they vary from house to house, from valley to valley: You can actually get a map and drive a speck trail the way you can the wine road through Tramin (where Gewürztraminer originated). Each tastes a little different: Siebenförcher, from Merano, is creamy and mild; Vontavon is a bit salty and very delicate; Ortler is smokier; Senfter is elegant; Gasser is more subtle; Martin is quite spicy and Recla has an assertive flavor of fennel. And the list goes on.

Thank God for Bolzano's Speckfest, where all these different specks can be tasted at once and compared. In the town's fastidiously restored central piazza, a dozen or so wooden booths exhibited glorious displays of speck, bacon, cooked hams and other local specialties. Over a weekend in May (held then because the pigs were traditionally slaughtered in December and the speck was ready to eat in May), 100,000 people came to taste speck. The place was crowded with a mix of Italians and Austrians, a kind of Heidi-meets-Gucci-loafer set--traditional, but well-heeled. The booths were staffed by young women selling fluffy piles of tissue-thin slices of speck on small cutting boards, garnished with horseradish, pickles and dark rye bread studded with raisins and nuts. In the VIP tent, guests snacked on plates of speck and raw porcini mushrooms dressed in lemon-infused olive oil and walnut halves, the creation of Herbert Hintner, chef of Zur Rose, one of the region's best restaurants. At the dinner hut they served a softball-sized knudel speckled with speck, rich, dark goulash and crisp vinegary coleslaw on a dinner plate with proper fork and knife. Teenagers in their sneakers sat at picnic tables, drinking glasses of the local Schiava, a light, spicy wine--the preferred vin ordinaire--and eating sandwiches of speck and sliced hard-boiled egg on a rustic bun. We settled for a more elegant dish of chard wrapped in speck and baked, served with the region's superior white asparagus from Terlano, thick as candles, at Restaurant Walther on the piazza.

Speck can be found just about anywhere in Alto Adige, and speck Alto Adige can be found in very fine gourmet stores throughout the United States…now that you know to look.


 * All About Speck

Bolzano's Speckfest is held every May; www.speckfest.org. Recla speck can be ordered through Savello USA; call (570) 822-9743 or e-mail info@savellousa.com. Graziano's Gourmet Food imports Senfter; (401) 521-7378. For a map of speck producers, go to www.speck.it. Fine dining in Alto Aldige: Restaurant Kuppelrain, Via Stazione 16, Castelballo/Bolzano, 011-39-0473-62-41-03. (Make reservations at least one week in advance.)