Wild Boar, Sweet-and-Sour

History

Wild boar — *cinghiale* — is the emblematic game of Tuscany and its Maremma, and there the hunted meat is dressed *dolce-forte*, "sweet-strong": a finishing sauce of raisins, pine nuts, candied peel, sugar, vinegar and dark chocolate.

Artusi sets the dish down in 1891 under exactly that name, and opens with a piece of advice. The boar, he thinks, should come with its rind and a finger of fat on it, because the fat of this wild pig stays firm when cooked, does not cloy, and has a texture he finds very pleasant indeed. He gives both the rich chocolate-and-fruit sauce and a plainer one of sugar and vinegar alone, advises making it a day ahead so the seasoning marries, and notes that hare can be done sweet-strong by the same receipt.

The record does not settle the dish's home, which is claimed for Tuscany yet also described as Roman.

What we could not stand behind is the long lineage usually given for the sweet-and-sour idea: that it ran through Roman cooking sweetened with honey, that it was reinforced through Arab Sicily, that the candied fruit and nuts mark the dish as a Renaissance survival, and that cocoa was domesticated at the Medici court in the 1600s. Those we learned from popular reference and food-writing sources, and we were unable to locate the evidence they rest on. What is certain is narrower and still worth saying: chocolate is a New World ingredient, so its place in this sauce cannot be older than the Atlantic crossing.

Ingredients

• 1 kg wild boar
• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 carrot
• 2 ribs white celery
• parsley
• 30 g fatty and lean prosciutto
• 40 g raisins (uva passolina)
• 30 g chocolate
• 30 g pine nuts
• 20 g candied peel
• 50 g sugar
• vinegar

Instructions

1. Make a battuto of onion, carrot, celery, parsley, and prosciutto; chop fine and set beneath the boar in a casserole with oil, salt, and pepper.
2. Cook together until the meat colors; drain most of the fat, dust with flour, and finish with hot water added occasionally.
3. Prepare the dolce-forte in a glass: raisins, chocolate, pine nuts, candied peel, sugar, and a little vinegar.
4. Pass the pan juices, add the dressing, and boil again to blend; it is better made a day ahead.
5. For a simpler version use only sugar and vinegar; the same method suits hare.