Maiale alla Zagara

Name: Maiale alla Zagara
Yield: serves 8
Ingredients: 2 cups good red wine; Juice and zest of 1 large orange; Juice and zest of 1 lemon; 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns; 1 tablespoon juniper berries; 6 whole cloves; 3 bay leaves; 1 5-pound loin of boned pork, trimmed of all but a thin layer of fat, rolled and tied at 1 1/2-inch intervals with butcher’s twine; 1/2 cup brown sugar; 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil; Fine sea salt; 1/2 cup good red wine vinegar; 3 large oranges, peeled of both their zest and their bitter white pith and sectioned; 2 lemons, peeled of both their zest and their bitter white pith and sectioned

January 24, 2012

Zagara—flower, in Greek—is the name farmers call their precious agrumi, they, it seems, likening the sweet, spicy perfumes of their oranges and lemons to the scents of blossoms. Thus, citrus fruits are Calabrian flowers. One farmer dared me to try to cook this luscious dish with bergamot rather than oranges and lemons, assuring me that it was the one and only fruit with which the massaie (housewives) braised pork long-ago. Finding none to beg or buy, I cannot tell you how the dish might have been with the ambered flesh and juices of the mysterious bergamot. One day I will.

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