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A Man and His Pigs
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The fairy tales I was told as a child almost always had a pig, sow, piglets or their owners as the main characters of the story.
They were stories about people from the Bassa (lowlands of the Paduan plain) as much attached to those animals as they were to members of their family, so much so as to call them by names that distinguished one from the other according to the characteristics of their skin colour, shape or weight. In this way we had: al macià (spotty), al ros (redskin), al negar (blackskin), al curt (shorty), al gros (giant), al gras (fatty). All different but with one great “mission” in common – to become exceptional cold meats! Back then everything seemed too natural not to last forever! But the years went by and I found myself all of a sudden a disillusioned man, the stars of my stories were no longer there, pigs had all become pale and thin! My obstinate quest began in this way, sacrificing my holidays for the next ten years odd.
Wherever I heard of pigs having different characteristics, I went there, I researched and I bought.
What a lot of disappointments I had in the first few years! Until something interesting happened. I found al macià in a remote and almost unreachable place and I discovered that that species was called borghigiana by the name of Borgo San Donnino (now Fidenza) and was famous for shoulder of ham and culatello ham. This information is confirmed in a detailed account by the legendary Gino da Schen, the old massalino from Vidalenzo, Polesine. After some unsuccessful journeys around the Romagna area, my perseverance was once more rewarded.
I managed to find al ros, there are very few specimens, I was told that only twenty or so still existed but I stuck my heels in and, in the end, I managed to buy them. It was a much more difficult task finding al negar: the verdict of almost everyone was unanimous; “a completely extinct species”, impossible to find, therefore! But one day, dott.
Piero Tanzi, originally from Rocca di Varsi, a village perched high up in the Apennines, talked to me about a photo taken at the end of the 40’s of his grandmother pictured together with a black sow and her piglets. The “hunt” was on and I rushed over to that place, but as usual, I found the same old thin, pale pigs. So I proceeded down the hills to Tuscany.
Here many people were familiar with the black species but nobody had a specimen to show me, let alone sell me one. My search went over to the Marche, Abruzzo and Molise but there was nothing doing! With some “advice” from experts, I decided to take a look in Spain. I travelled south, my destination being Jabugo, legendary land of the “pata negra”, the most famous ham in the world and, in that area with its hills swarming with grazing pigs, I bought all the books I could find on the subject. From the photos and comparison with real animals, I discovered that they were close to the black pigs of my stories but they did not have the so called “wattles”.
With information received from a local breeder I learnt that there are twelve different species of black pig in Spain all with different variations and not only this; the person I was talking to said he remembered that one of these species had the famous protuberances… it was what I was looking for! The reason why this Spanish species had been present in and around Parma and Piacenza since ancient times was suddenly clear in my mind: the Bourbons! Yes, the Spanish noblemen, for many years the undisputed Lords of these Provinces, had imported these pigs holding them to be of better quality than those already present.
My research in that area, however, remained unsuccessful but I returned home equally happy. The problem, at least from an historical point of view, was solved; all I needed now was the live animal. I had a tip off telling me to go into the Tosco-emiliane hills. I didn’t think much of it because I had been there so many times before for nothing but anything was worth a try! Once there my scepticism disappeared, wonder of all wonders, I found six black pigs belonging to a farmer who said he has always bred them, in that the meat of modern pigs does not satisfy them. It was now time to buy and after exhausting negotiations with the swineherd, who made me think he was either cunning or genuinely attached to his little herd of swine, I managed to obtain three: a male and two females. More good news then arrived from Campania; there were some specimens in Caserta with “wattles”.
In this way I managed to buy three sows and the deal was done… Now I really did have all the species that frequently appeared on my fairy tale threshing floors and in large enough numbers to start breeding. Once this long and tiring task had been concluded I began to ask myself a few uncomfortable but necessary questions such as, what would the meat be like? Would it really be good quality and if it was so good, why had these pigs been abandoned? An answer to the initial questions could be found observing the way in which these species lived on the farm and how they grew; they need four times as much space as pale pigs, they sleep on straw and need to wallow in the mud. The sows have a relatively limited number of piglets, which grow slowly and by the time their meat is ready, they are enormous with a great deal of lard on them, which was seen as no use up to a short time ago.
They are quite the opposite of today’s pale pigs, which are able to live in a similar way to battery chickens, in extremely limited space, and because they are not able to move, everything they eat fattens them in an extremely brief space of time. In the light of this, my research seemed almost anachronistic and overambitious, a useless waste of time and money! The moral of the story had holes in it, even with an alibi, giving a logical justification to my obstinacy, saying to myself, at least I have saved some old species from my territory from extinction and, apart from the economic fiasco of the thing, it was a worthy cause. In the meanwhile, the pigs were growing and after 20 months had become marvellous beasts, weighing 280-300 kilos each and were, as people around these parts say, “fit for a
photo”. We were ready for the moment of truth! I then decided to have one specimen of each species slaughtered, even though it rather saddened me.
It wasn’t easy getting rid of one of the precious pieces of my collection but my researcher spirit got the better of me because it was only by verifying the pork and cold meats made from the pig that all those years of research could hope to be rewarded! When I examined the parts of the pork I could not believe my eyes; the meat was compact and veined with fat and it was a nice ruby colour, not pale like pork from other pigs, selected in this way to make it appear like veal and fifteen cm rosy lards with nice lean veins! And what of the various products made with this meat? When I sampled the culatello ham, shoulder of ham, salamis and salted lard, all made according to traditional methods, I could almost have cried! They were marvellous! The scent and taste that emanated from them had the power to take me back to my childhood days! The experiment had been successful – my time and effort had not been thrown to the wind.
What great satisfaction have I had from those apparently antieconomic, non-competitive pigs with too much fat and too little lean, considered unsuitable for fast and modern factory farming methods. After all, we end up in the usual diatribe harking back to the years of hunger in which quantity not quality was more important. Unfortunately, today times have changed! With this new production philosophy, my brother Luciano and I decided to buy up some old pig sheds, the kind with brick pavements and walls, and breed these old species, feeding them as they were once fed with cereals produced on our farm so that we can continue producing those unique cold meats that the Spigaroli family have produced for four generations in the Antica Corte Pallavicina on the banks of the river Po in Polesine Parmense.
Massimo
Spigaroli
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Massimo e Luciano Spigaroli
Allevatori e Produttori
in Polesine Parmense
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