Marco comes from over 600 years of smallgoods making. No mean feat considering that Australia was only over run by immigrants some 220 years or so ago. The secret of the Cirillo family meats was brought to our fair shores from Marco's forebears and it pays heed to note that what Marco doesn't know about smallgoods, isn't worth knowing.
Marco came in as a WISS interloper; haranguing the judges, eyeing off his competition, interrupting me speaking (the worst crime), but in the end was possibly the most important part of our WISS day aside the actual entries - the beefeater. Marco managed to eyeball, sniff, squeeze and dissect every piece of meat ensuring our health, well being and anal integrity was kept intact. He knew when meat was turning, he knew when it was underprepared, he even gave a diatribe on curing methods from the Roman era using a paper cup and a toothpick. Marco knew everything, was beyond helpful, stewarded all meat, ran beers and, invaluably, brought his 'cure-all' homemade limoncello to steady our guts.
Marco also brought with him two entries that fit no genre of our dinky competition - a 6-year-old ham and a Cirillo speck. Spectacular meats - the 6-year-old ham with the texture of soft yet pliantly chewy cheddar and aromas that ran from camembert to intense, gamey pork. Like nothing else and simply stunning; plus an insight into the Cirillo family's long history of smallgoods-ing. The speck was insanely concentrated pigginess, but, as meat chewing gum goes, superb. I wished we had some dough and a pizza oven.
Anyways, a humongous thanks to Marco... and by all means neck one of his range of craggy old-vine grenache wines when you next spy a bottle. A worthy drank for some meats. Or in general.
Grazie mille, Marco!
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| Marco, centre, surveys the WISS judging table |
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