Pork with Rosemary

The Rosemary

It’s killing me, but I’ve dumped a dozen wheelbarrows full of bay leaves, lavender and rosemary in the olive grove.  Sergio has been sprucing the place up a bit for the next (and last for the season) round of guests, so he’s trimmed these wonderful plants that grow like shrubs here and it’s my job to pick up and haul off the cuttings.  The rosemary, in particular, was hard on me; we can’t seem to get ours to last more than a year or two at home, let alone make full-on shrubbery.  This is a great country!

The Pork

Last night mid-hauling along this path (left), I decided to stop for a few minutes to gather some lavender for my room.  I must have been quiet enough so as to go undetected, because out of nowhere I heard a noise and looked over and here came three young wild boars running up the path, jumping the ancient retaining wall, and heading into the trees, just a few yards away from me!  One had trouble figuring out how to get up on the wall, and he just looked at me for a minute unsure of what do do, and then finally scrambled away. 

They were the cinghiali that we’d heard so much about on our prior trips.  The older males grow pretty threatening-looking tusks, but these were juveniles.  Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but of all the pictures from my googling this one looks most like them, except their manes were more pronounced.

There are a couple of well-known Tuscan specialties – a pasta dish (papardelle al ragu di cinghiale), as well as some salamis – made from wild boar meat.  During the weekends especially, the hills around here ring with gunshots of hunters looking for their own cinghiale.