Mountain and land specialities

Recipes based on game should deserve a chapter apart. Then again, I cannot skip mentioning one of my favourite which is the wild boar. I am a convinced environmentalist and I love animals, but I am a carnivorous and as much convinced flesh eater! Travellers visiting these mountains and valleys should not miss a very lean, full flavored succulent bistecca di chinghiale alla griglia (grilled wild boar steak) or brasato di chinghiale (stewed wild boar in casserole). The grilled steak is always served with oven roasted potatoes with wild rosemary.

    Puntarelle (Catalonian chicory)

Even so, my absolute favourite are the pappardelle al cinghiale (large, long, flat pasta with stewed wild boar sauce). The sauce has soft, tender stewed wildboar meat seasoned with a fresh mix of herbs in a delicate tomato sauce. The result is hard to describe with words, but a unique experience for any meat and pasta lover. Of course, in this territories one will easily find authentic, wild boar sausages, with 100% wild, organic wild boar meat hand-chopped and prepared. Other specialities found are other types of game such the wild hare, oven cooked or also accompanying the pappardelle with sauce of hare braised with wine, carrots, celery, onions, oven cooked pheasant.

Among meat, I would like to dedicate few lines for the local salsiccia paeasana (rustic pork sausage). Here on the Aurunci mountains’ villages the sausage is still home made from home-grown animals like three thousand years ago’. In the Aurunci and Ausoni mountains territory in autumn the pork is fed with acorns of the various oaks, roots and bulbs the abounds in the woods of the park. Their diet is integrated with carobs, fruits and a mash of bran and corn. The meat is traditionally hand-chopped and stuffed into the animal guts and when is still fresh the sausage must be cooked. At this stage the sausage take its typical and lively red and white colour for the presence of fat; when dried it gets dark red with the fat less evident.

This is also the green land of the sheperds of the Aurunci, Ausoni and south Ciociaria mountains. The sheperds still produce since centuries a very special goat cheese called Marzolina. The name comes from the Italian word Marzo meaning March, which according to tradition is the best month for its production. The Marzolina has a stretched, cylindrical shape with a weight varying from 70 gr. to 250 gr. and is made exclusively with goat milk. During this springtime two factors make the milk quality exceptionally rich and tasty. Around March the goats finish nursing their off-springs and their milk is much richer due the fields and pastures getting greener and succulent after the harsh mountain winter. Full of grass, wild herbs like sage, thyme and rosemary give to the milk and very special aroma and intense taste.

The Marzolina’s production happens only locally on these mountains and hidden valleys and it continues usually until October. This local cheese is part of the most authentic traditions of the Aurunci Mountains territory thanks to some breeders who kept learned and kept the ancient methods of production and techniques from the shepherds. The Marzolina can be eaten fresh when releases a delicate taste that is enhanced when accompanied by full-bodied, local red wines such as Olivella from Esperia or Cesanese del Piglio. For its seasoning the Marzolina is washed with water or passed into olive oli and winegar. Some sheperds leave the Marzolina in olive oil adding local wild herbs such as thyme and sage that enhance even more the cheese’ aroma giving the taste of a mountain field.