As with most of what I've written about, the weekend of October 24 will truly be a memory that will stay with me. However, this particular weekend was acutely special. My roommate Andrea, his cousin Luca, who have become close friends of mine, and I had been talking about venturing to Luca's hometown in southern Campania, and the close by home of their grandparents, since our first dinner all together. We all share a love and a passion for every aspect of food. The production of food products, cooking with quality ingredients, eating food that satisfies the senses, and enjoying it with other people and establishing a connection through that. Because of this passion we all share, Luca and Andrea were incredibly kind to invite me to come to the region where so much of their upbringing occurred; the place where their love of food blossomed. For food-obsessed people like us, the place where the obsession began is incredibly important. I look forward to one day showing them the same places that cultivated my love for food back in New England. However, it will probably pale in comparison to the wealth of food-related experiences their homeland has to offer, including their grandparents farm, a beautiful family-owned cheese factory, the original-style pizza which originated in Campania made at the restaurant of their good friend Giuseppe, the wonderful cooking of Luca's mother and Grandmother, and the thrilling experience of hunting for wild boar.
I will preface this piece by admitting that at the time of our departure from Siena on an overnight bus Wednesday night, I was feeling a bit homesick. I had just returned from a long, spectacular weekend in London two nights prior, I hadn't gotten enough rest, and I felt unsettled. During these moments I find myself thinking about the comforts of my home across the pond. But, I knew that the experience of a lifetime was waiting at the other end of the bus ride. Unfortunately, I got little sleep on the bus. But when we arrived in Campania, where Luca's dad picked us up from the bus stop, I knew it was time to immerse myself in the experience, take on the day with no fears, and soak up every bit of it despite my discomfort. It was 5:00 AM, and we were set to begin the day of hunting directly after breakfast. I had never been hunting before, but I was always curious about it. For a period of time during my adolescence, I was unsure, even opposed to it morally. But since learning more about ecosystems and food sourcing in general from my own experiences, adult me decided that hunting was indeed something I wanted to try. On the way from the bus stop to Luca's hometown of Conza, Andrea told me that his uncle Gelsomino, Luca's dad, had killed 409 wild boars in his lifetime! I was certainly in the right place to learn about hunting and have an incredible time doing so...
Without further context, here is the trailer for this piece. I took this all in one shot and I decided to leave it as so with musical accompaniment, to put the viewer directly in my shoes as Luca's tracker; the man responsible for finding, listening, and watching for wild boars. Just before this moment, we were laying down on the hill, right in the territory of the very territorial wild boar. We were in danger of encountering a dangerous, unexpected boar at any moment. However with this sense of looming danger, I found inner peace. I even dozed off briefly. Something about feeling totally comfortable with the potential danger gave me a sense of confidence and accomplishment. After all, we had been tracking the boar for around nine hours at this point. I felt achieved in immersing myself in the experience of wild boar hunting, and after a day full of shifts and changes, I was ready for anything. Just before I began recording the video, we were notified by another hunter that wild boar were coming our way. You will not see any graphic material in this video, I promise.
Shortly after this video, we crossed paths with a wild boar, and then another. Luca fired two shots at the first one, the second which hit the target. However, that boar escaped until we tracked it down later and Uncle Gelsomino was able to take it down. The next boar was shot down by the hunter pictured standing on the opposite hill from us in the video. He had experienced tracking dogs by his side who led him to this spot. By the end of the day, the team got three boars. Two were thanks to the surefire shot of Uncle Gelsomino.
Amongst the many things I learned during the hunt was the importance of using experienced tracking dogs. After identifying wild boar tracks in the forests and fields outside of Conza, the dogs were the ones who we sent out first to sniff down the targets. The dogs were also used to startle the wild boar, in hopes that this would drive them towards the hunters. The next thing I learned was that wild boar aren't just aggressive, they are also fast, evasive, smart, and resilient, making them extremely hard to kill. Unless the bullet hits a vital area, which mainly includes the neck and head, the boar will survive, evade the hunters, and recover rather quickly. They do this by rolling around in mud where the wound is. The mud acts as a natural band-aid, sealing the wound, stopping the bleeding, and ultimately leading them to a swift recovery.
I also learned a bit about butchering the boar (fair warning there's one picture of that in the above gallery) which was fascinating to me as someone who works with food. I was happy to see that the hunters were using every part of the animal, leaving nothing to waste. The next night, we ate wild boar cooked two ways. One was the shoulder of the animal, cooked similarly to a typical ragu; starting by browning the meat, adding carrots and onions, and the pleasantly surprising sour tangy notes of juniper berries, deglazing with wine, and letting it simmer. The next wild boar dish was the leg cooked with sweet and spicy peppers. Each dish was specially made my Luca's mother who is very experienced cooking with Wild Boar, considering her husband has killed 409, oh wait... 411 Wild Boar.
This particular experience and the entire weekend spent in Campania was a time that I will never forget. I know it will live vividly in mind for years to come because we were hunting for our own food, something I've only seen in Discovery Channel shows and Prehistoric reenactments of hunter/gatherer cultures in Anthropology classes. I truly can't thank everyone on the hunting team enough for inviting me along with them and showing me the ropes, especially Luca, Andrea, and Gelsomino. Hunting has always intrigued me, and finally it felt like the right time to do it. I was not morally opposed to this type of hunting at all for two reasons; because Wild Boar are considered to be overpopulating Southern Campania, and dodging hunters has been a part of their survival for thousands of years. I'm not gonna write that I think it balances the ecosystem, because that's a little over my head and I would be talking out of my ass. However, I certainly wasn't hunting some endangered species just for its fur. I took part in hunting the wild boar to try something new, thus opening myself up for future opportunities to relinquish my comfort, learn, and grow.