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It started out as a convivial challenge. “I need to find a name for my new product.”
Our friend Berardino Lombardo, rugged maverick chef-turned-farmer-and-breeder, had done it again: by applying the old italian adage, del maiale non si butta niente (nothing of the pig goes to waste), he’d forged his latest idea into an extraordinary example of cured meat, the result of tying together the lard, bacon and loin of pork.
Accompanied by our photographer Claudio Corrivetti, we trudged deep into the chestnut forests of his 40 hectare estate, to the hut where Berardino prepares and smokes his products. There amidst the prized prosciutti, capocolli, soppressate and sausages hung something new. It was odd-looking: the entire back of the pig folded in half like a wallet, pressed together between two pieces of wood and firmly tied with string all along its length.
These, however, were no ordinary pigs, but the rare black maiale nero Casertano, an ancient indigenous breed which (it is said) Berardino single-handedly saved from extinction. (To cure this cut of meat, it is salted, seasoned, smoked for two months over a smouldering aromatic fire of pines and bay leaves and then matured for another nine months in tufa caves).
Berardino hoisted a big piece onto his shoulders and climbing up the hill to his 18th century casale said, “Now let’s see what it tastes like.”
We sat, ate, drank and talked about this wonderful new …’thing’. It was extraordinary: delicate, rich and juicy, with a spicy, round flavour. Looking at Claudio’s photos I said the word “string” out loud in English. My husband countered with the Italian “stringa”. Claudio paused, then blurted, “I have it! Stringata!”
At that’s how the Stringata got its name!