A recent year in Italy taught me that the pig is the king of its gastronomic jungle. Italians heart hogs. They prepare every imaginable part in every imaginable manner: cured and roasted and braised, even slow-poached in olive oil. One terrifying morning, in the back of a butcher shop, I ate it raw, slathered on a slice of rustic bread. Surviving the sushi-sausage experience would have been the most memorable encounter with the noble swine had it not been for an introduction to guanciale. At a sleepy trattoria, somewhere in the middle of Italy, I had a plate of pasta steeped in such succulence that I had to ask the owner the secret. "Semplice," he said, pinching my face, "guancia."


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