Norcia, after the Quake

Nestled into Umbria’s Sibiline mountains lies the destination of foodies the world over—Norcia. 

As cities go, it is thoroughly Umbrian in its charm and also humility. No towering spires, no Medici balls, no gilded statuary. Instead, what you’ll find is a collection of historic buildings housing esoteric religious artifacts and lesser works of off-brand artists. But it’s not the town of Norcia that has made the town a destination. Rather, it is the woods all around Norcia, teeming with wild boar. 

What I’ve realized this year is that places can be differentiated by what they have in surplus and therefore how they preserve it. In Switzerland, the landscape is ideally suited for dairy cows and so farmers have created myriad ways to turn milk into products that last, like yogurt and especially cheese.

In Norcia, those stocked woods translates to a surfeit of boar meat and therefore an industry set up to preserve it. It’s no wonder that throughout Italy, norcineria refers to artisanal pork curing and the word norcino is used for one who works with pork meat. And one of my favorite pasta dishes is “pasta alla norcia” which includes sausage and mushrooms, another treat of the forest.

Norcia’s claim to fame is announced all up and down the streets by way of wild boar heads hanging outside shops. These aren’t hunting trophies, though you’d be forgiven for briefly assuming they are, even though they are vulnerable to the elements, rather than taking pride of places in a wood paneled library (as if such things existed in Umbria). No, those hairy and tusked pig heads are the salumeria equivalent of barber poles.

Step into any of these shops and you’ll rock back on your heels.

Can this all be…cured meats?

Feasting on salumi in Norcia, Umbria (Italy)

Yes.

Yes it can.

It is simply more cured meat than you ever knew existed, even in your wildest fever dreams. Barrels overflowing, display counters filled with more meats piled on the cases. Every corner crammed, interspersed with honeys and spreads and wine as well as homespun burlap sacks of legumes that grow like wildflowers in this part of Umbria.

Norcia is, quite simply, Disneyland for salumi-lovers. 

Up until 2016, salumi was Norcia’s singular claim to the world stage. Its hashtag, a simple #salumi. Then came the earthquakes. And Norcia, along with her little sister town of Castelluccio and neighbor to the south, Amatrice, quivered reluctantly into the limelight. Images of crumpled churches and devastated streets filled the feeds of anyone who follows Italy-related sights, along with pleas to help fund a rebuilding of these historic towns. Throughout the world spread an innovative fundraising effort—restaurants served pasta amatriciana and donated the proceeds to rebuilding efforts. 

Living in Charlottesville at the time (which knows a bit about becoming a hashtag), I happily ordered plate after plate of lackluster amatriciana. Americans, unfortunately, don’t understand that the key to an excellent amatriciana, more than the fun noodle with the hole in the middle like a wacky, edible straw—spaghetti is actually a fine substitute for the harder to find bucatini— is that the sauce should not be primarily a tomato sauce, but instead be a fat sauce. Which might make you queasy, until you think of a pleasing plate of spaghetti dressed simply with olive oil and garlic and pepper flakes, or a bowl of pasta with butter and a simple shaving of aged Pecorino Romano or a plate of carbonara that makes you close your eyes to keep from swooning. Amatriciana is the same, only the fat is ideally guanciale, and secondarily pancetta, and a distant third, bacon. Whatever meat is used needs to be rendered slowly until the meat is crisp and the fat can become a base to add crushed tomatoes and a spicy red pepper (see my recipe here).

In any case, even though American restaurants rarely know how to make an adequate plate of amatriciana, still, we invented reasons to go out to dinner just to order more plus antipasti and bottles of wine, besides. Beyond sending money to hard-hit areas, ordering amatriciana seemed our small way to keep the earthquakes on the radar of restauranteurs and therefore people the world over. 

Despite all of our endeavors, people have largely forgotten the damage sustained in Norcia, Amatrice, and Castelluccio. I myself just sort of assumed that the rebuilding “must be largely done by now.” I guess one or two things have happened since 2016 to distract our Twitter-weary minds.

And so I returned to Norcia in 2021, prepared for some scaffolding, but completely unprepared for the amount of devastation that remains to be repaired. If it can be. 

Yes, the image of the facade of the perilously cracked basilica left its imprint. But I guess I hadn’t seen enough images of the rest of the church which is… in a word… gone.

Walk around Norcia’s main cathedral, the former jewel of her piazza, and you’ll find rubble. If you told me a bomb exploded within the church, smashing out the center and leaving remnants of confessionals along the edge and a fall of rosette petals, I would nod and say, “Well, that makes sense.”

A passeggiata around town and you’ll find buildings and arches and facades bolstered with mesh and scaffolding and iron. The shops from the centro have been removed to a row of log cabins right outside the town gate, and here you’ll find people lined up to purchase pork products and the world famous lentils of Castelluccio. 

There are some restaurants operating of course, mostly on the edges (but still within the ancient walls) of this large village. People still flock to Norcia for salumi made from the cinghiale that made the area famous. Norcia’s position makes the air feel clearer, brighter, and you can sit outside and order a bottle of Umbrian red wine and a platter of local meats and cheeses. In this way, your tastebuds can connect you with the glory of Norcia yesterday, and the glory of Norcia today. 

You may ask, “But is Norcia really worth visiting now?”

I suppose if what you seek in your Italian experience is actually equivalent to Disneyland, with no reminders that darkness and struggle exist just beyond the veil, than no, perhaps it’s not for you. There is a shop or two within the walls that caters to seekers of glossy charm—with their displays of stuffed and fiberglass pigs cavorting in moss strewn with artificial flowers. But you’d have to keep your vision strained firmly on those glassy eyes to avoid the scaffolding soaring above the shop, the rose colored plaster crumbling around the corner.

But if what you seek in Italy is life, then yes, Norcia remains a destination. It’s a reminder that beauty is fleeting, that suffering exists. But it doesn’t need to be a depressing wake up call. Rather it can be a reminder to seek the moment within the moment. To savor each bite of prosciutto, each wedge of cheese dipped in local honey. To close your eyes and let the flavors cascade as the burble of life continues in Norcia. 

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