[Sca-cooks] pig cheese

[Terry Decker]

Davidson doesn't list porchino or pig cheese.

Porcherino (the local name) appears to derive from the Italian root 
porcheri- which translates to dirt, filth, obscenity.  Since I am less than 
proficient in Italian, someone who is familiar with the language might 
provide some further insight.

I don't necessarily expect someone with the screen handle of Paolo writing 
about Tuscan cheese to be perfectly correct in English.  Lord knows I make 
enough typos and it is my primary language.  And while the article is 
written in decent English, the Italian "Van de Chiana" is either a double 
entendre or a misspelling of "Val de Chiana."

The lack of earlier references to porchino strongly suggests the article is 
a hoax.

Pigs have 6 to 20 mammary glands and there is variation on the number within 
breeds.

They do not produce oxytocin.  Oxytocin is injected to improve lactation 
when milking by hand or machine (apparently for hand feeding piglets). 
Modern farming uses cages for nursing and probably for milking.

http://classes.ansci.illinois.edu/ansc438/lactation/swine.html

There is a lack of detail in both the Tuscan story and the one on Chef 
Edward Lee, that makes both stories questionable.  Chef Lee's stated method 
of attaining the milk is at variance with the industry methods of milking 
pigs raising some questions of accuracy and veracity.  Milking pigs is done. 
Making cheese from this milk is possible.  But this does not prove the 
cheese is made in Tuscany or the accuracy of the story about Chef Lee.

Bear