Meat

I have two 5-foot-tall maps of Italy that I refer to from time to time when I give a cooking class. One of the maps is organized politically to show the regions into which the nation is divided, while the other is topographical, using color to illustrate the height of the mountains and the varying depths of the seas. Pointing to the topographical map I tell my students, “See the large, triangular, bright green area that covers much of the north? This is Italy’s only large plain. Here we can have cows, and with them the milk for butter and Parmesan. Here people eat beef, veal, and pork that has been raised on the residual whey from cheese making. See how the colors of the rest of the country range from yellow to ocher to dark brown? Those are hills and mountains. There are few cows there and most of the meat that people eat, aside from chicken and rabbit, is lamb, and their cheese is pecorino, made from ewe’s milk.”