Thank you!
I've been rollin' for nine
I know speak English, but my wife came speak in English very well for me.
This is the stomach of the world, my family have been butchers for 250 years, I myself
almost 40, and I do it with the pride of an ancient art. This is an art that in ancient
times priests took care of. To resolve this terrible dilemma of killing to eat. Taking
on the weight of killing so that the community can eat. We are carnivores, but we must be
conscientious carnivores. We need to be responsible carnivores. We must guarantee to the animal
a good life as long as possible. It's a good idea not to kill animals who are too young,
too small, and we need to have respect for the gift. We have to have respect for the
gift of meat that the animal has given us. And this means to use every part well from
the nose to the tail. And that begins with the stomach, with the guts, and it begins
there for us as well. For this, this is the reason I say that the stomach is truly the
beginning, it's the beginning and the end. We have to begin to appreciate even the awful
as food that is good. In our contemporary world meat as food has been moved away from
the reality of it. The beef we see, the pork we see, it's usually a couple of little slices
under plastic wrap in a little tray at the supermarket. It has become more and more difficult
to keep in mind that at one time that meat was a pig or a cow. So if we start from the
guts, we go back to our origins. It's the butchers in the end who bring our food back
to the rusticness of the tribe. So in a world that's ever more full of supermarkets, I stand
by my tradition and my art. I started this job when I was 16 years old because my parents
got sick and then died. This is how I began. I got together with master butchers older
than I was and there I learned the odor, the smell of butchery, the smell of death. And
I needed to accept my job and accept what life had given me. So this is how I began
my work, not thinking that one cut was better than another, not thinking that the filet or
the chop was the best, but that every part could be good. Also because in the family
of a butcher, in a butcher's family, you don't eat the best cuts. A butcher's family, the
kids are brought up eating what other people don't want to buy. So my grandmother, who
was the one cooking for us because my mother and father worked hard in the butcher shop,
she cooked for us the most amazing foods for me and my sister. She made pancakes from
pig's blood. She cooked pigs intestines into a soup. This is one of the great traditions
of my culture, soup of cabbage and pig intestines. She made a wonderful recipe of pig liver with
the call fat surrounding it and laurel and fennel. She made kidneys, she grilled them. Every
day was a party. These were wonderful foods for me. Every day I had a chance to learn new
ways of cooking and eating simple, good, simple foods. I grew up never eating a steak. I grew
up never eating a filet. My first classic Florentine tibos steak, I ate at 18 years
old to celebrate my birthday. But I didn't miss it at all growing up. The tribe, intestines,
liver, were all things that were much more delicious for me. The simple things were what
I really loved, like what I have in my hand right now. No, no, no, there's a funny effect
when he turns away from me, I can't hear dang thing he says. Come on, you translate for
me what he just said, I know you can do it. It's wrong to keep them on the ground, thank
you out there. And now we continue opening this pig stomach. We've taken out the first
intestines, now we're working on the stomach. I said, at the beginning of my experience
as a butcher, the thing that struck me most was not the killing, but it was the smell
now. This is a pig I can tell that was raised very well, his stomach is very, very strong.
So as I said, the first memories that I have is the smell of the butchery, the scent of
the passage from life to death. This is the first perfume of me. It's something that maybe
you don't smell up there, but I smell it very well, because I'm right here with my nose
in the animal. This is the first perfume that a butcher smells. So we've taken out
the part that really is the guts, the buddhela, the intestines, the stomach, and now we're
starting to get to the other internal organs. I'm working on the lungs, the heart, and
the liver now, and I'm feeling the heat of the meat, and the blood, this idea of life
and death. It's a strong work, but it's necessary. So you have to begin and you
don't have to finish. Liver, heart, lung. So what we're talking about here is really
the essence of life. This is what I saw when I was 16 years old, and what I still see today.
I continue working in this very small village in the heart of the Chianti wine region, Pansano,
in Italy, in Tuscany, continuing this tradition of the butcher and of my family, but more
than anything, what I'm doing is a job that I feel is extremely necessary. In a world
ever more filled with supermarkets, and with butchers who are considered practically a
race in extinction, and perhaps they actually are. I am convinced that instead butchers
are actually the most delicate ring in the food chain. They are the link of knowledge
and consciousness and knowledge. Conscience in that we need to have respect. We have
to not kill indiscriminately and wastefully. But knowledge as well, because we really
do have to use everything in the best way possible. It's easy to say nose to tail.
It's truly important, and the job of a butcher, to aid the people who are eating, to aid
the people who are preparing the food, the chefs, and the people who prepare it at home,
by giving them an alphabet to work with. The butcher has to give them an alphabet
to give the chef or the cook the alphabet of simple things. We're talking about passing
on the letters of the alphabet truly so that the cook can work it into words to create.
With the words that the cook can create, and when it all comes together, and surely it
will all come together, it all becomes poetry. It becomes harmony. It becomes harmony.
The artisan, the cook, life, death, it all becomes harmony. I came here from Pansano
with my wife to bring you this concept, to tell you that I am able to open a pig, to
open a pig. But all of my life, my passion, my heart, is truly in search of this harmony.
It's the idea of a passage that can become romantic, the idea of this paradox. I can
explain it even better when I'm butchering a cow. With a cow, the paradox is truly always
to be, or not to be.
Thank you.
But I'm here as well to tell you I do not want my world to end. I'm here to tell you
that butchers are an essential part in the world of food. They are my race. They know
the life and the death of animals, and good butchers have respect. Artisan butchers are
holding high the values. Industry, as you know, only thinks about money. In our world
today, we truly need more values, many values. I started 40 years ago, all by myself, 19
years old, like a poor little wet chick. I had no idea if I was going to make it. But
after 40 years of work, I'm here with great pride to tell you the story of myself and
my people. I'm here to tell you that my work can become poetry. I'm here to tell you that
my work can become poetry. To tell you that it is an important work, I'm truly moved and
proud to be here today. This is the guts of the pig with all of its really wonderful
things, with the intestines to make soup, with the liver to grill. We can do a nice
braised dish with the tribe, and with a little bit of potatoes and the lungs and the heart
we make a wonderful stew. But I'm also here to tell you that all of this for me is poetry,
like the love that I have for my work. He said the love I have for my wife, I think
you all got that. Even without a translation. And truly, it's a joy for me to be here. Together
with you, together with all these amazing chefs, with René, who is our light, and
with this poetic thought that I carry to you about respect for the animal. And so I
would like to dedicate to you, even if the words aren't going to be perhaps understandable,
I would like to dedicate to you the last paragraphs of the Song of Love from Dante's Divine Comedy.
Last the words won't make sense, but I hope you will feel the energy.
I hope you will feel the energy, I hope you will feel the energy, I hope you will feel
the energy, I hope you will feel the energy, I hope you will feel the energy, I hope you
will feel the energy, I hope you will feel the energy.
