Page 27 - A Life - my Live - my path

Herding goats and sheep in Italy

if you're feeling very hungry. Abruzzo
specialities are served at family dinners.
Primo : always pasta. Changes daily.
Secondo : either meat or fish.
In restaurants, the "contorni" (side dishes) are
ordered separately: salads, cooked
vegetables, chips, etc.…

Eating meat was not customary. It was switched by sausages
preserved in oil or a few pork sausages or prosciutto. On
special occasions, we ate pork, rabbit, chicken or lamb. My
favourite was the oven-cooked young goat meat ,
19
surrounded by chunky potatoes with lots of oil and chunky
onions. A real treat!

Anecdote: invitation
When invited to a christening, communion, wedding,
jubilee, etc. it was customary to bring a gift to be worth at
least as much as the cost of the meal offered. As you
couldn't go out and buy anything, you'd bring a chicken, a
rabbit, a leg of lamb or, what was considered the absolute
must, a young goat.
Everyone fed the animals so that they produced a good
quantity of meat. Pigs could reach 120 to 130 kg, and 75-
day-old lambs came to 25 kg, i.e. between 12 and 14 kg net.
Lambs are eaten when they are 3 or 4 months old, and

19 Also known as kid.
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