Cotechino con Lenticchie

The story

Boiled pork sausage served with lentils is traditionally eaten at midnight on New Year's, but in many families it is also made part of the Christmas menu as a preview of the holidays still to come. The symbolism is direct: the small, round lentils resemble coins, so it is believed that whoever eats the most of them at New Year's will have more money in the year ahead. Cotechino comes from the area around Modena, and according to local lore the recipe dates to the siege of the town of Mirandola in 1511, when the inhabitants, short of food, began stuffing the less prized parts of the pig, seasoned with salt and pepper, into casings to preserve them: an ordinary sausage casing for cotechino, the skin of a pig's foot for its close cousin, zampone. The meat, surprisingly, turned out rich and delicious. Today cotechino carries a protected geographical indication, and it is simmered for hours over low heat until it is soft enough to cut with a spoon, not a knife. For families who serve it at Christmas and do not wait for New Year's, the gesture is the same: wishing wealth on the household as early in the holiday season as possible.