Year of the Pig

In hindsight, perhaps the best way to celebrate the Chinese New Year and welcome in the Year of the Pig was not to, well, eat a pig. An Italian pig, at that. But when I veered out of Chinatown into Formaggio Kitchen at Essex Market and was handed the fattiest piece of pork I’ve ever seen, what was I supposed to do? Say no?
Formaggio Kitchen calls these feathery, fatty slices Porchetta. I’ve seen the word Porchetta applied to various roasted and stuffed pork loin concoctions, but this Porchetta is more like a cured meat, sliced paper-thin with a peppery, herbaceous aroma. In the deli case it looks like Pancetta, but unlike Pancetta, Porchetta does not need to be cooked before being eaten. It is like a cross between Lardo and Prosciutto. I’m throwing around a lot of Italian pork-product lingo here, and if you’re lost at this point, Porchetta may not be your thing. Porchetta is for someone who has years of Prosciutto eating under their belt and is ready for something new. What is unbelievable about Porchetta is how light it feels on the palate, when nutritionally it can’t be much healthier than licking a cube of lard.

In the U.S. you’re likely to pay at least $15/lb for a taste. I have heard that in certain parts of Italy Porchetta sandwiches are sold from what sounds like the Italian version of a taco truck. Which is a nice little reminder that what we think of here as “new gourmet” food is more often than not, food that someone in another country has been eating for hundreds and hundreds of years.