Cheese + Honey | Pork + Porcini | Olive Oil, Chestnuts + Polenta | Gastronomic Adventures for Familes
Bare Oil in Tuscany | Slow Food Salone del Gusto + Lucca | Cooking Lessons and Courses

Packaged adventures:
Pork + Porcini

Thursday 18 September – Wednesday 24 September 2008 (PP08/1)
Thursday 25 September – Wednesday 1 October 2008 (PP08/2)

Early autumn, the heat of the summer lingers on, but in the cool, still-green chestnut woods, there are treasures to be found. With the help of a very patient local wild mushroom expert, you can get your eye in and experience the thrill of discovering the highly prized porcini. Autumn was the traditional time to slaughter the family pig, preferably fattened on chestnuts in these same woods. How can a single pig provide such a rich variety of different products and delectable flavours? Can lardo (pork fat!) really be edible? On this Adventure, you’ll get your teeth into these finger-licking problems and wash them down with excellent wines. Activities include:

• Introduction to wild mushrooms of the area
• Trek through chestnut woods to hunt for wild mushrooms, harvest chestnuts and observe the ancient Cinta Senese breed of pigs
• Visit the Colonnata producers of lardo, pork fat which is cured with salt and wild herbs in a basin made from the famed marble of Carrara, taken from the same quarries which Michelangelo used for his sculptures
• Learn to cook wild mushrooms and local breeds of pork with Lucchese chef Gianluca Pardini

• Attend a village feast to celebrate porchetta (roast suckling pig)
• Salumi and wine tasting at Andrea Bertucci’s parallel gastronomic universe, the Osteria ‘Il Vecchio Mulino’, beneath the 12th-century fortress in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana
• Visit the Angelini family and witness them making biroldo (traditional Garfagnana blood sausage)
• Grand finale: dinner at Michelin-starred restaurant La Mora
• Optional concert or other cultural event

Accommodation: Hotel Villa Volpi, Mastiano (Lucca, Tuscany)
An elegantly restored, 18th-century, traditional farmhouse with 4* amenities including en-suite bathrooms, air-conditioning/central heating, swimming pool. Some events take place at the adjacent Villa Volpi restaurant which is run by Piero Morelli, leader of the Serchio di Lucca Slow Food Convivium.

Price: €2150
Single supplement: €190

Notes

More details of the programme will be sent nearer the time. Weather is usually warm and dry. Bring a swimsuit and walking shoes or boots.

Meeting points
Pisa International Airport (Galileo Galilei)
or the following train stations:
Pisa Centrale
Lucca
Ponte a Moriano

International travel advice
For more information on flights to Pisa International Airport, please click here.
For information on arriving by train The Man in Seat Sixty-One gives much good advice.