It’s Fall in Italy and the early rains combined with the warm October temperatures have created the perfect conditions for mushrooms! Italians love to forage for mushrooms, it’s practically a national pastime.
Wild Boar, Cows on the Loose and Rabbit Stew
It’s mid August and my vegetable garden is rewarding my earlier summer efforts with copious amounts of cucumber, tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini, green beans, eggplant, basil and parsley. I asked my neighbor down the hill how her garden was doing and she told me the Cinghiale got her garden! Cinghiale (pronounced: Chen-gall-aye) are wild boars that roam the forests using their snouts to forage for grubs in the soft soil, “The Cinghiale destroyed your garden?!” I gasp while asking increduolously. “The Cinghiale are around here?” “Si”, she responds with eyes wide open “A BIG one with nine babies!” “What?!?” I start thinking about my garden just up the hill from her, I imagine a enormous wild boar with big tusks rummaging through my garden followed by her nine babies. I ask her if the wild boar can be hunted because I also started to imagine a big bowl of steaming pasta in a rich Cinghiale Ragu. “No” she replies, the season for boar is closed but in the fall it will reopen.