Degustation Dinner Party

We recently organized a dinner party with some fellow pork-loving friends in the beautiful upstairs room of Melbourne's lovely old Town Hall Hotel pub. We set the table with carafes of Sangiovese and bowls of pinzimonio — the old school Italian aperitivo classic — sticks of raw vegetables for dipping in extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The idea behind the dinner party (affectionately nicknamed “La Maialata” — 'maiale' is pig in Italian and 'maialata' suggests a certain amount of pigging out) was a different cut of pork for every course, and often, a less popular cut of pork. We used very traditional regional Italian recipes from Tuscany and Campania (an unusual mix but oh do they know what to do with pork!), such as pulled pork shoulder cooked for hours in white wine, homemade rosemary panini filled with thick slices of porchetta (we even tracked down some succulent free range Berkshire pork for this special roast pork dish) and, one of my favorite Tuscan street foods, braised pork cheek ravioli.

—Emiko Davies

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Photos

01. Emiko Davies

4 Comments

Comments

[Huy Le]

Oh my goodness how did I not know about this!?

Shattered I missed out on this :(

[Silvia]

Very good choices! For your next Maialata, please, try some crostini with lardo di Colonnata, or some prosciutto San Daniele, or some speck from Trentino, or...(think I'd better stop.. oh,I can go on like this all day)

[la domestique]

This looks so good- especially the pork ravioli. I do love pork. :)

[Mr. Glitter]

Thanks for all the gorgeous photos! Looks like a lovely time!