Noci, Cinghiale and Pecarino.

Despite having exchanged many emails with Jann, the owner of the Magli house, just a day before arriving we discovered there was a vital piece information we were missing:  the address and instructions on how to get into the house.  A frantic series of emails to Jann who was in transit to Australia ensured and we were very impressed with ourselves to have managed to get within 10km of our destination when Jann sent us the details we needed.  Upon arrival we were to call a local couple Ron and Ianthe who had been in earlier to turn on the heating and would let us in.  Our attempts to call Ianthe and Ron failed but we were saved by our next door neighbours, elderly Pasquelina and her daughter Maria Assunta.  They  invited us into their home and poured us glasses of their homemade Limoncello liqueur to sip while she called Eric.  Eric is a Dutch architect, but has relocated with his wife and family to Italy for the lifestyle.  Instead of practising architecture, he now works as a builder and site supervisor in the area.  As he has done work for Robert and Jann, he had access to a key and let us in after translating a conversation between Pasquelina, Maria Assunta and ourselves.  Later we had a visit from Ron and Ianthe who had run into Eric in town.  What could have seemed a disaster all turned out well.

When we had parked our car, Pasquelina in ever increasing volume and much gesture indicated we should close the gates to the property.  We understood “Senora Roberto” and her showing us how to close the gates but the explanation  also involved noci and cinghiale.  Neither of these words made any sense to us but Pasquelina was insistent and who were we to argue?

The next day Morag encountered Pasquelina collecting walnuts that had fallen from the roadside trees.  Noci, noci she explained so now we had half the puzzle solved.  Walking around Robert and Jann’s property revealed they had 3 walnut trees, one mature one and 2 smaller and there were many windfall walnuts on the ground.  Collecting these and drying them on the terrace became a ritual during our stay and on Robert and Jann’s arrival a couple of weeks later we were able to present them with several plastic shopping bags brimming with walnuts.

The first walnuts Morag collected she shared with Pasquelina who then took Morag on a tour of her garden and Morag came home with vegetables, grapes and herbs in abundance.  Much was said by Pasquelina during this garden tour but it was all lost on Morag.  Still the sharing of what we have is understood in all languages.

A Google search using possible variation of how you could spell cinghiale eventually revealed that they are wild boar that roam the forests of Italy and France and create havoc in vineyards and gardens.   Walnuts are a particular favourite of these beasts.  Cinghiale meat features on many menus, usually as a ragu sauce over pasta or in salamis.  Towards the end of our visit, the hunting season had started and men with guns over their shoulders would be wandering around the fields and hillsides accompanied by dogs, often English setters, and although we heard gunshots we never saw any evidence that their hunting efforts had been successful.  It seemed like a good excuse to get out with friends as much as anything.

See also: how to handle an encounter with a cinghiale.

Another local product was cheese made from the milk of sheep that grazed on the surrounding hills.  This cheese is called pecorino, but something was lost in translation when we went into a local cheese shop and when we would point to any cheese in the cabinet and ask what it was we would be told pecorino even though they all looked different.  What we needed to ask was what sort of pecorino it was; soft, mature, vintage.  No matter it was all very acceptable.