Cinghiali!

Sample cinghiale!


Sagra poster


The sagra locale


The waiters

Last Thursday night, on our way back from dinner, we (Dom, Geri, Karen and I) surprised a group of cinghiali (wild boar) on the road from Valdottavo to Partigliano. Unfortunately we did not have a camera at the ready but the two adults looked somewhat like the above bruiser. There were also three little striped and spotted piglets. They were up on a sort of a ledge right near the road and in the light from the car's high beams looked like they were posing just for us. Dom stopped the car dead in the road and we all shrieked, squealed and pointed. The two sows looked at us briefly before trotting off into the woods with the piglets scrambling along behind.

Cinghiali are both a cultural phenomenon here and a pest. In the fall there are groups of hunters that go after them every weekend. We have sat on the patio in October and November listening to the cacaphony of hunters yelling, dogs barking and shotguns firing as the squadre (teams) bag 15-20 in a day. That sounds like numbers that could wipe out the population but the total cinghiali actually keep increasing every year.

Much like deer on Whidbey Island, the cinghiali are a menace to gardens and cars. They like to dig up roots so potatoes are favorite. The locals use fences around their orti (vegetable gardens)to keep them at bay. Some people hang little clumps of something they claim the cinghiali avoid to keep them away from their veggies. We have heard them on our property, especially at night, where they did quite a bit of damage last summer digging up a certain type of broad leaf weed in our fields. This spring we do not hear much of them as they seem to have eradicated that particular plant.

Although the ones we saw last week were our first glimpse of them, they are often hit by cars. As large as they are they often cause more damage to the vehicles than they receive. At any rate they do much the same as the deer--wander off into the woods after being hit so who knows what really happens to them.

On Sunday evening we went to the Sagra (Festival) dei Cinghiali in the town of Balbano. I was hoping it would be a sagra with music and dancing but it looked to be just food. Nonetheless, it was really tasty. We enjoyed papparadelle al cinghiale (wide ribbon pasta with tomato and boar sauce) and cinghiale in humido (stewed cinghiale). Dom also had some sausages--not cinghiale--that was really good. Geri and Karen enjoyed the look at a local sagra and the chance to try cinghiale. We finished up the evening with stops for gelato in Ponte a Moriano and drinks at the bar in our village.