Photo
taken Jan, 1976 at our farm at Pian della Pieve, Assisi. (Click
photo to see bigger.) Left to right. Sagra, our dog, Adamo, the
butcher... me - our friend Renato, our farm neighbor Marino - my
husband Pino in front of the now-deceased Zsa zsa.
Sorting through old photos recently and came across this one...
which brought back so many memories of our years (late 70's and
early 80's) working the land here on our farm outside of Assisi....
Zsa-zsa was turned into prosciutto, barbozza, capocollo,
salami, sausages, bacon, coppa, lard ... (do my eyes look red?)
I was in the house with my head under a pillow when Adamo, our farm
neighbor (as well as pig butcher-in-Dec/Jan) shot her - pellet right
between the eyes... no sound then but the pig squeals (as Zsa-zsa
had done) when they drag her out of the stall via a noose around
her snout... I never named our pigs after that first butchering....
She and her sister, Fo-fo were our first 2 pigs - I thought Zsa-Zsa
had a "luscious" sound to it - and "Fo-fo" was
named after a piglet that someone had given to Pino in Palermo as
a child... as his family was very poor, there wasn't enough money
to buy feed for her but she would rub up and down against their
tangerine, lemon and orange trees to knock the fruit down to eat.
One day, 9-yr old Pino returned from school to find her being loaded
onto a truck: his father had sold her for meat .
We raised them from piglets - when I was heading up to the "back
40", long scythe over my shoulder (dressed as in the pic),
to scythe clover or alfalfa for the rabbits, I'd let them loose
to come up to the fields to graze (the farmers always said that
good fresh grass would "clean out the liver") ...they'd
come trotting up the hill after me, kicking up their heels now and
then... bouncing... their ears would wobble and wag ...and they'd
grunt with glee if they unearthed any acorns under the new grass
around the oak trees.
...and if they ever found any truffles, they kept the secret to
themselves...
