Cassoeula

The story

Cassoeula is the pork-and-cabbage stew of Milan and the Lombard countryside, made from the parts of the pig a farm family did not cure: ribs, rind, trotters, sometimes ears, tail and snout, plus small fresh sausages called verzini. In Lombardy the slaughter season traditionally ran from Santa Lucia on December 13 to January 17, the feast of Sant’Antonio Abate, protector of domestic animals, who is painted with a pig at his side. Cassoeula belongs to that feast, which in 2027 falls on a Sunday. Its other necessity is savoy cabbage, and Lombard cooks wait for the first frosts, which make the leaves sweeter and more tender. The dish in its present form dates from the early 1900s, while the first known Lombard recipe appears in Antonio Odescalchi’s Il cuoco senza pretese of 1826. The name probably comes from a kitchen tool, either the casserole or the cassœu, the spoon used to stir it; a popular version points to the bricklayer’s trowel. Each area keeps its own version: white wine and no trotters around Como, goose in Novara, a drier stew in Bergamo. Serve it with soft polenta, and cook it on Saturday for Sunday, since it tastes better the day after.