Tastes like ass

Tonight Pam and Romano whisked us off to the nearby village of Costamezzana for the last day of their annual Festa dell'Asinina. Many towns, including our own Fidenza, throw a communal party for a few evenings each summer where they serve local specialties. In Fidenza the dinner centers on prosciutto and other regional salumi and the fried bread called torta frita. In Costamezzana, as the name of the festa indicates, the main dish is stewed donkey.

The menu: good and cheap.

The festa was held in a large sports field near the town church, looking out over a bucolic vista of hills and fields. We went early, around 7:30, while a band specializing in liscio (music maybe your grandparents would have liked) set up for later in the evening. A large crowd was already chowing down on the festa offerings: crispy fried polenta, big slabs of gorgonzola, plates of prosciutto, french fries, and bowls of donkey stew and creamy polenta. 

Danny and I opted for the main event, the donkey stew. You always worry a meat you haven't tried before is going to have a strong taste of whatever animal it comes from, and although I am not sure exactly what a donkey smells like, I was braced for a flavor somewhere between horse sweat and barn. But no, asinina cooked in tomatoes and wine tastes a lot like a very delicious braise of beef. 

Romano, Pam, and Danny at the festa. Pam opted for fried polenta and gorgonzola, but she's had donkey before.

When my kids were young and didn't like some unpleasantly grown-up food we'd made them take a bite of (that is, anything that didn't come out of a package with a cartoon character on the front), they would sometimes wrinkle up their sweet little faces in a spasm of disgust and cry, "Eccch! That tastes like ass!" Which is a disturbing thing to hear your child say, on many levels.

Now that I've tasted ass I can take it as a compliment.