Life on a Tuscan Farm

If the concept of seasonal meat-eating seems like a ridiculous subjugation of your liberties and tastes, you may need a reality check.

We now eat - demand to be able to eat - more meat than our ancestors ever did, which comes at a very high price to our health, to our environment, and to the welfare of our animals. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, America consumed around 125 (boneless) kilos of meat per capita in 2007. The current population of the US stands at 313,539,000. When I tried to see, numerically, what 125 kilos X 313,539,000 looked like, I couldn’t; the numbers ran off every calculator I could find. What I was able to figure out was that it amounts to a lot of meat. Hmm, actually, more than a lot. It amounts to a hideously unsustainable bloody pile of animal flesh that can only be raised in an intensive manner. That said, I’m not much into sensationalizing this topic, or patronizing people for their consumption patterns because, frankly, the majority of us should know better. Italy and Ireland, by the way, were about head-to-head in their per capita consumption at 90 kilos per annum. Which, ugh, apparently means that I eat (almost) my own weight in meat every year. Luxembourg was the big surprise since its inhabitants eat even more meat than Americans: a whopping 138 kilos annually. Shame on them. But, oh the irony of their demonym.

What ever way you cut it, the meat industry is one driven by our consumerist desires. The faux pas then, is our own. We need to be eating much less meat, of a much higher quality. We need to be more thoughtful about the way in which our animals were raised: what they ate: how they were slaughtered and how their bodies are transformed into the cuts we purchase. While we need to eat fewer animals, we also need to eat more of the animal: the head, the offal, the feet, the intestines, the tail. We need to address everything about the way we are and just what, exactly, makes us feel entitled to meat 3 times a day, 365 days of the year. Why, when they are told exactly what goes into it and how it is made, does a piece of soppressata gross out so many people who, otherwise, are quite happy to chomp on a hotdog? Call me a reductionist or a pretentious gastronome – fine. But, I know that as an eater of meat, it’s better for all concerned to eat Spannocchia’s soppressata over Coop brand hotdogs.

And what got me thinking about all of this? Today marks the last slaughter day of Spring 2012. This morning Riccio, Chris and Miki are breaking down three pigs in the transformation room. Then that’s it until Fall, when our phenologically-fattened herd start to forage around in their extensive forest ‘pens’ for their free and tasty diet. Sure, I’ll miss fresh pork chops and sausages every second week, but I know that there’ll come a time (usually around my birthday in September!) when it will all kick off again. It’s the anticipation that I relish, almost as much as the meat itself. I know that these pigs have been raised in a manner that respects the earth’s resources. I know that they are treated with the utmost care during their life, and when it comes to their death. I know that Riccio, scatter-brained as he is in his own life, is the most thoughtful salumi maker I’ve met. I know that this meat tastes better than good and that, in short, is why I eat it.

A presto…

Andrea Battino’s English is really very good, but I don’t consider that the main reason behind his superbly evocative bee discussions. When Andrea speaks about these insects he uses words like: society, alien, organism and hierarchy. These are impressive words for a non-native English speaker, granted. But often, Andrea becomes very quiet – he’ll fiddle with a chunk of propolis and whisper that bees are: really quite incredible animals. Really. Quite incredible…

And they are. Such hubristic tendencies we humans have to consistently position ourselves above other societies, both human and non. We consider ourselves to be exceptionally advanced, keying addresses into little black boxes to find our way, or temperature controlling massive buildings in extreme weather conditions. Bees do all of that too, but they don’t have a bee-sized Tom Tom or air-con unit. They have their own highly sophisticated navigation system, allowing them to gauge the angle between the sun and their food source, thus facilitating their trajectory home. Their communications too, are concise: bees pick up hormone signals from their community members and react accordingly. Hive too hot? Workers are dispatched to find water which they then spritz around the cells with their wings. Hive too cold? They form a huddle and generate heat through friction. The result? A perfectly stable 37 degrees Celsius within a honey bee hive no matter what the weather outside. Really. Quite incredible…

Bees, like humans, always produce more than they need. But our insatiability differs to a devastating degree. The human appetite for ‘more’ now threatens the ability of anyone who comes after us to meet their own most basic needs. Like a yeast cell, killed by the by-product of its own greed, we have manipulated our resources to the extent that our environment now terrorizes us. Bees, in nature, will continue to collect nectar and continue to produce honey for as long as they have flowers to frequent and space to store the spoils. But they exhaust and exploit very little in the process. Bees live in perfect symbiosis with their natural environment. In visiting more flowers - in being greedy - bees only serve to pollinate even more flowers for next year. And just who gets to visit all those blossoms to provide for themselves ad infinitum? The next generation of workers of course.

If we choose to take heed and swallow our hubris, bees offer a third-level education in community and sustainability, which, let’s face it, is kinda all the rage. However, how positively exciting that, for once, the thing that tops the chart of ‘cool’ is absolutely necessary for our survival. And what about a bumper sticker for this sentiment?

Forget Pollan… bee keep!

A presto…

On Tuesday we danced, we ate and we drank. One of us was even wooed by a sage old Tuscan with a paucity of teeth. We did a lot of fun things we usually wouldn’t do in celebration of the Italian working man, and woman. We also listened to Riccio’s folk band sing songs about emmigration and bizarre betrothals. Check out a snippet here.

A presto…

In the Fall of 2010, ex-intern Driscoll Reid returned to Spannocchia with a special mission. We rarely saw Driscoll, or heard him for that matter, but in two weeks he managed to create a series of beautiful short films inspired by the culture and landscape. His titles are simple, but the images he was able to capture tell a rich story that encapsulates what Spannocchia was, and is.

If it is possible to actually capture the essence of something, I feel that Driscoll may have done just that. Please take a look at our Vimeo channel where, over the coming weeks, we will post all of Driscoll’s films. They are too good to keep to ourselves.

And if you want to check out Driscoll’s impressive project catalogue, do. You can find him here.

A presto…