Of men and boys

Last night's starry (shooting-starry) skies have left us minus-one shivery at eight this morning. More clear skies, and soothing sunshine. 

Saturday morning. One hour before sunrise. The ancient stones of Carmine Superiore lie silent in the winter cold. All is still. 

All but two muffled figures - one tall, one tiny - each carrying a mysterious bundle, stealing away quietly down the old pathway to the lake, keeping to the shadows and followed closely by two feline shapes. 

The village broods over the pair as they slip across the road and into a battered car. They gently pull onto the deserted statale and are soon lost amid the twists and turns of the Valle Cannobina. Soon the figure in the passenger seat is snoozing, as the driver takes the two of them expertly over the rise and into the Valle Vigezzo and beyond. 

Overhead, unseen, a meteor shower lights the sky.

As the sun rises, the pair, father and son, meet their contact at a rural farmstead lying beyond the last town, beyond the last village, beyond the last hamlet, at the very end of the valley. 


Rapidly and without too many words, the men manhandle a bodybag into the back seat and the car is once again away, this time taking the highway towards Omegna. In town, at an intersection, the driver signals discreetly to another in a stationary car, which immediately pulls out in front, leading the way. Plunging into the Omegna suburbs, they stop first at one house, then at another until at last there are six men. All carrying similar bundles. 

With each new arrival, the mood lifts until they are disgorged into a large cellar amid a festive spirit. The bag is lifted gently out of the World's Most Battered Panda, and the men start unbundling aprons and knives, opening bottles of homemade wine and starting in on the massive half-pig before them. 

In Piemonte, December is porker season - the traditional month for slaughtering pigs and making salami, sausages and other products. This particular fellow was reared free-range on an alp, and fed on the whey by-product of artisan cheese-making from the milk of the cows he shared the good life with. His death was swift and fear-free. And almost every part of him will be used. 

The sausages were made with only salt and spices - principally cinnamon - as additives, and believe me, they taste like no other pork I've ever eaten. Let's face it, they are probably the freshest I've ever eaten. There are 40 kilos of sausages hanging in the cellar right now, and I think Jakob! agrees with me on how good they are - every time he passes the cellar door, he points.

Here's to the big fellow. Here's to the kind friend who reared him, to all the guys who joined the gang last Saturday and brought their deboning knives with them. And finally to AJ, the boy who spent the day among the men and did such a great job loading up the sausage-machine.