This boneless pork roast stuffed with spices is a pillar of Lazio’s culinary tradition.
A TASTE OF LAZIO
Magnifico recently welcomed a new company onto its platform: Montosco, an italian leader in the world of spices. You can season any dish with their oregano, fennel, garlic, rosemary, or thyme, brought straight from nature to your kitchen. However, one particular dish from Italy is defined by its traditional mix of spices: porchetta, a savory, boneless pork roast from Lazio, the region surrounding Rome.
PLAN A TRIP TO I CASTELLI ROMANI
You can find porchetta almost anywhere nowadays, but if you are looking for the perfect atmosphere in which to enjoy it, you have to go to its birthplace: i castelli romani. The cozy, rustic restaurants that dot the rural region will offer porchetta di Ariccia, named after one of the towns in the castelli area. The restaurants are simple, with characteristic long tables where you can go with friends to be loud and drink the notorious local house wines. On your next trip to Rome, plan a day trip to the castelli! While associated with the countryside around Rome, the origins of porchetta are unknown. Its ubiquitousness, however, has made it a pillar of central Italy’s culinary tradition: Italy’s Ministry of Agriculture has, in fact, honored porchetta as a “traditional agricultural food product.” It’s fair to say that even if porchetta from Lazio is the most famous, we have it also in the culinary tradition of Umbria and Abruzzo region. You can buy porchetta at the supermarket or try it in a restaurant, but if you are in Rome and you see a food truck, stop by and ask for a porchetta sandwich. The streets of Rome and nearby towns are full of vendors that sell it.
THE ARTISTRY BEHIND THE TREAT
Making porchetta is not easy: it requires a difficult balance of flavors and a lengthy cooking process. The cut of pork has to be deboned then carefully stuffed with a mixture of liver, fennel, and other herbs and spices, and finally rolled. Spices play a huge part in the recipe, as each chef adds his or her own specific blend. As you can imagine, it’s not a light treat, but eating it is absolutely worth every calorie.
