Spannocchia and Chattanooga
10 December 2007
The guest season has finished at Spannocchia, and the interns have gone home, but there is still a lot of work to keep us busy on the farm! Winter is the prime butchering season here at Spannocchia and we will be transforming 36+ Cinta Senese pigs over the next few months to make prosciutto, spalla, salame, salsiccia and fresh pork products. We have several winter volunteers including Patrick, Emily and Trae to help us. Trae is a Slow Food member from Chattanooga Tennessee, who found out about us through Slow Food Siena convivium leader Marco Bechi. Trae is on a mission to learn about butchering and salumi making so that he can return to Chattanooga and open his own butcher shop. Before arriving at Spannocchia he spent time working at a slaughter house and traveled for several months visiting butcher shops in different countries, participating when he could. He will be working with Piero and Riccio here at Spannocchia to learn the in’s and out’s of our meat processing. He has already put in many hours during his first pig transformation last week. Trae and the Slow Food community of Chattanooga were featured in this month’s Italian Slow Food magazine (Dec, 2007). It’s in Italian, but worth a peek. A presto!