Last night we took neighbor Armando to Terrarossa castle. He was singing there with the Coro Lunigiana. It was a benefit concert. Armando is a big and bronzed man; he sings bass.
I drove. As I inched my way timidly through the blockage in our crowded, park-anywhere-you-wish community lot, he posed a question that set me back. Way back.
“Did you eat the lardo?” he bellowed in his authoritative bass voice.
Armando raises pigs; Maiale good enough to make trophy salami. Earlier he had given us an enormous brick of lardo—larger than any I had seen in a store.
We had discussed his gift earlier. He wanted us to take some home to the US. We tried to dissuade him. I can’t imagine it’s legal. He figured otherwise. Shrink wrap cures all, he advised. Not in those exact words of course, but close. Armando doesn’t speak a word of English.
“Eat the lardo?” I repeated in disbelief. It had only been hours since he gave it to us.
“The whole thing? Martha added incredulously from the back seat.
Armando whirled in his seat, dervish quick. “Of course not the whole thing! That would kill you!” he said in a way that made it clear he was amazed that he had to explain these things.
I stopped the car. I couldn’t do the surgical backing out thing and think about the level of Lardo consumption an Italian would think reasonable at the same time.
“No, he said, if you want to take some home I’ll give you more, a bigger package.” This one, he explained, was to eat here. My mind did not have the capacity to imagine a larger package. Of lardo.
We have five days to go in Italy, As much as I love lardo, I was getting painted into a corner. One one hand, I’m sure my arteries look like the kinda pipes the rotor rooter man likes to make you look at on the TV so you’ll give him a bunch of your hard-earned money with no questions asked. I’m just as sure that eating good, natural food and being happy about it is also a key to long and happy life (ok, maybe just a happy one, but who has those these days?). In any case, that’s how I keep from thinking, as most of my countrymen do, that a few, paper thin slices of lardo are going to do me in pronto, or at least anytime soon. But eat maybe a kilo and a half of lardo in 5 days?
You gotta admit, that’s a bit much.
So, um, you wanna come over? We have lardo a plenty. We have wine. We even have beer and bread.
Free. If you’re nice, maybe I’ll even kick in a little for gas.
(Here’s more on Lardo if you have no idea of what I’m talkin’ about. Mmmm, especially melted over grilled bread. Maybe now is the time to start drawing down the supply…)