Porchetta in the Park: A Florentine Food Truck Memory by Ruth Paget
After eating a memorable meal at the Fattoria di Maiano up in the hills around Florence (Italy) in Fiesole, my husband Laurent and I spent the next part of our vacation in touristy Florence looking for authentic food in a speedy not slow food location.
What is truly wonderful about Italy, especially Florence, is that we found the authentic people’s food of Tuscany at the Mercato di Cascine (Cascine Market) on Tuesday morning.
This market that stretches a mile along the Arno River has hundreds of food trucks selling cuts of spit-roasted pork and porchetta (pronounced por-ketta) sandwiches among other food items, clothes, shoes, and household items.
Several trucks specialized in just porchetta sandwiches, which I later found out was roasted, rolled pork belly seasoned with herbs like rosemary and fennel. Porchetta is basted every ½ hour with its fatty cooking juices, which makes it taste especially good.
Laurent and I bought porchetta sandwiches, because they were easy to order for tourists with limited Italian skills.
The street vendor we purchased our porchetta sandwiches from grilled two ciabatta bread halves and placed them two medium slices of warm porchetta on the bottom bun. Next, the vendor placed a mound of peppery arugula on top of the porchetta with a splash of red wine vinegar.
The warm top bun went on top of the arugula. The skin on the porchetta was crisp along with the ciabatta bun for good texture to this calorie drenched sandwiched. I liked the punchy vinegar on the arugula too.
We bought San Pellegrino Limonata, lemon sodas, to go with our delectable sandwiches.
We strolled up and down the market for exercise and being part of the local culture and economy I was so happy to have found an authentic agritourism spot in Italy that also supported what was to become the globally respected Slow Food Movement.
The recipe below from Serious Eats calls for 4-hour roast on its belly roll porchetta that can be used in sandwiches.
https://www.seriouseats.com/all-belly-porchetta-recipe-italian-roast-pork
A food truck specializing in porchetta sandwiches might be able to turn a profit quickly by setting up reservation orders at a Farmers’ Market or by setting up neighborhood delivery runs like ice cream trucks or Omaha Steaks.
Having a porchetta truck run on a non-market day like Monday in Salinas, California could bring food into local neighborhoods and distribute it quickly.
Food thoughts for the day!
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France and developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games
