"I do it with love!"

In Gone With The Wind, Rex told Scarlet, “You can tell a lady by her hands.” In the Appennino Parmense Hills of Italy, you can tell a butcher by the same; he’s the one with the gashes on his.

Giovanni killed his first pig when he was 12; nowadays he regularly wins the valley’s annual Salami Nostrano Contest in Brunelli and is booked solid in the winter months when pigs are slaughtered. Giovanni’s forearms are proportionally large, his hands are even larger. There are a couple of permanent hematomas on his Popeye arms and countless painful looking scars on his massive fingers, including one that apparently went down to the bone as a chunk of meat is missing. The years of hard-knocks has created a master that today is more comfortable with a knife than most people are with their own toothbrush.

There are three types of butchers in Italy: One that does the pig slaughtering, one that does the meat cutting, and one that does the meat cooking. Giovanni is all three. The herbs and spices he uses for his cured meats, sausages, “cakes” and “cheeses” has made him a recognized and much desired macellaio.

And then there’s me.. on the other end of the spectrum, a near vegetarian, a green fan. I love making salads -every bit of it- from buying the freshest produce at the Farmer’s Market, to coming up with the perfect vinaigrette. For the first few days after our pigs were brought back in sections, I was nauseated by the intensity of the smell and the enormity of the meat, guts, and yes – gore. Even while sleeping, I’d envision the bloody pieces encircling me. There was no escape.

And yet I couldn’t deny Giovanni’s local fame as excited neighbors came to witness him work. Nor could I discount the genuine sounds of “MMmm!” when they sampled sausage stuffing or what was to be head-cheese. From the first day of my arrival, Gian-Luca and Iris declared how lucky I was to be here at the farm at this time of year. Seeing Giovanni , the macellaio perform his art, I began to see the truth in that statement.

“So what is it that makes you so good? “ I asked Giovanni through a translator.

With sincere warmth in his face he replied, ”Faccio con amore!”

I should have known.

Is there really any other answer?