We were on our way back from Arco today towards Lago di Como. While on the highway, i refuse to stop in those highway or commercial centers restaurants even if the kids are pleading to visit an Italian Mickey D’s. So we play Waze roulette and pick a Trattoria about 20km of the highway.
When we get there, the place looks closed but we soldier on. Good call, the place is open and the kids are starving.
My Italian is almost non-existent but usually sufficient to order in restaurants. But this time we’re told the owner speaks French and will be with us shortly.
Carla comes out of the kitchen and let’s us know in the most perfect French that she spent 16 years in Lyon. She then proceeds to tell us what we will be eating today. Primi piatti is mezzi rigatoni al ragù. Along which she served us half a pitcher of sparkling white that evokes nondescript Vinho Verde. I have no clue what it was…
By then the kids and my wife are already full but seeing how she insists I try the meat, I can’t and don’t want to say no. She tells me it’s horse and another meat… she can’t remember how to say it in French. She says asino. Donkey it is.
The only other time I’ve had Donkey meat was in Africa when I was a wee lad. This time it’s braised for 8 hours in red wine, carrots, onions and bay leaves and served with fresh bay leaves as well. Very strong in taste but incredibly savoury. The red wine, full pitcher, has my wife grimacing intensely. And I can see why. But today, with braised horse and donkey in red wine, i go through a couple of glasses with ease and eagerness.
The kids finish the meal with homemade cake while my wife and I have a ristretto.
The dining room is occupied by locals only. Carla is the perfect host and she has us promise to try and come back in summer so the kids can use the swimming pool and she’ll make us wood oven pizzas.
Excellent story, I once had donkey sausage on the Loire near Bourgueil. It was really old, and tasted like it had been left in a cellar and forgotten for years.
I’d certainly make a beeline for that on the menu if I saw it. My tasting donkey was somewhat tentative (I hate the smell of raw horse meat), but would actively seek out a dish like this now.
There is a bend in the road in San Giorgio di Valpolicella and that’s where Trattoria Dalla Rosa Alda is. They serve (or did) wonderful donkey braised in Amarone. They’ve also served horse similarly prepared. Worth the drive.
Back in the day, the owner sold some of his grapes to his neighbor in return for wine. The neighbor was Beppe Quintarelli. Homemade saucer cake accompanied by a glass of (unlabeled) Quintarelli recioto. Good stuff!
I remember being taken to a restaurant in Tokyo where all they served was horse in various forms, quite a bit was raw to very rare if I recall correctly. Cannot remember any particular smell but might be the prep, breed or something else.
Donkey was the food of pilgrims and you will find a long tradition of it in Italy. Salami works best, I find as most of the donkeys are not young when slaughtered.
Horse is dfficult in Germany, if a restaurant selss horse meat, they must have a separate fridge etc. The same for butchers. Blind tasted it is almost impossibe to tell them apart, the same visually
We have a horse butcher in Stuttgart and one in Alpirsbach.
