The vast choice of restaurants and trattorias
in and around Modena offer alternative menus outside the scope
of the "Modena a tavola" mark but still very much in
line with local tradition. As well as the most highly prized
prosciutto, hors d'oeuvres may include a whole range of salamis
made from different types of meat, with different proportions
of fat, minced in different ways and containing different natural
flavourings. The most typical is the so-called "salame montanaro"
or mountain salami, made from pure lean pork, minced medium-fine,
flavoured with salt and peppercorns, stuffed into pork gut and
cured. Another very fragrant local product is mortadella,
or Bologna sausage, traditionally made by grinding meat with a
pestle and mortar - hence the name. Before pepper arrived from
India, mortadella used to be flavoured with myrtle berries. The
thirty per cent fat added to the finely minced lean meat is cut
into cubes, so a large slice of mortadella looks like a circle
of pink with lots of white eyes. Then come the whole series of
pancetta and coppa products, made from rolling combinations
of lean meat and fat. The most humble of all these products are
coppa di testa, a kind of brawn, and ciccioli, pressed
pork scratchings, both highly prized delicacies in spite of their
ingredients. In country trattorias, one of the favourite pasta
dishes is maccheroni al pettine, macaroni made by hand
from strips of egg pasta and decorated with ridges by wrapping
them round a stick and passing them over a traditional comb-like
implement, served with a meat ragout. As main course, particularly
in cold weather, there are two equally delicious variants on the
zampone. Cotechino consists of a filling with slightly
more fat than that of zampone stuffed into pig gut, while cappello
da prete is made by wrapping zampone filling into the skin
of a pig's cheek and sewing it into the shape of a three-cornered
hat. The local pork sausages, or salsicce, are also mouth-watering
and very meaty. Modena's most characteristic type of cake is
known as "bensone or belsone". Baked
in the shape of a long loaf of bread, when oven-fresh this dessert
has the fragrance and goodness of all the best simple foods.
It used to be eaten cut in slices and dunked in lambrusco or the
local sweet white wine.
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