Pop Quiz

The way the DDD describes the purpose of my writing is to bring something different into your knowledge and taste of foods. I have tried to motivate into using different kinds of herbs and spices to make sauces that set off the flavors of a meal.

To have something different I bring to you a test of various kinds of things that are produced from a pig. Can you figure out this easy puzzle?

What is it:

1. Zampone

2. Culatello

3. Mortadella

4. Coppa

5. Prosciutto

A. Meat from behind the neck of a pig,

massaged with salt and spices and cured in a cold roo for six months.

B. Whole ham salted and slowly dried for a least one year.

C. Back leg muscle rubbed with wine, salt, pepper and garlic and stuffed into a pig's

bladder and tied in a pear shape. Aged for

at least one year.

D. Pig's feet stuffed with pork meat, skin, fat and spiced, boiled until soft. New Year's dish.

E. Pork ground to a paste in a mortar,

seasoned with myrtle berries, mixed with cubes of hard neck fat (must me fifteen percent) and cooked slowly.

Let us try first the Zampone which is a rich, unctuous texture and rustic, almost gamy taste. First soak 2 ½ pounds of zampone overnight in cold water and drain. Then just prick the skin of a zampone with a large needle, wrap in cheesecloth, place in a pan, add water to cover and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer gently for 3 hours. The cooking time increases by about 30 minutes for each additional 1 pound 2 ounces. Let stand in the water for 10 minutes, then drain and sliced. Goes well with mashed potatoes or stewed lentils. I see pigs feet in the grocery store, so let us give it a try stuffing one.

All these meats come from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. I have been through the region going North on the A1 to Florence, Bologna, Modena, Parma, Piacenza to Milan. I remember most were the tunnels I went through on the A-! and when off the A1, the area looked like an old American WWII movie except the tanks and soldiers were missing. The farm houses, roads, landscapes were the same as in the movies.

Also when driving in Italy, if you see flashing headlights in the distance behind you, you better get in the far right hand lane or step up you speed considerably for one of those fancy high speed cars will go right over you.

Off the A-1 highway is an area I would like to revisit with its farmhouse restaurants of great Italian foods.

To sum up this area now of rural life of Italy is to say it is sustained on a diet of state support, provincial support, supranational subsidies, and the tourist and general public that are willing to pay for good, local, traditional foods. With this area dying demographically until the EU money started coming into the area to pave all the roads, increase the income of the farmers through farm subsidies, so that they could repair their homes, it is now become a great tourist area off the main A-1 highway. Put this area on your road map when you visit the great cities and history of Italy and you will leave with the real taste of Italian cooking.

Answers: D, C, E, A, B. Easy?

Larry Eiker is a Kennett resident who

enjoys traveling all over the world

and experiencing great food, while

bringing some of those ideas back

home to the Bootheel to

share with others.