Here’s Christopher St. John’s blog, its virgin entry a thoughtful piece titled “Why publicly-held corporations behave like sociopaths.”

This story won the 2008 Solas Award silver certificate for best animal encounter story. It will appear in Best Women’s Travel Writing 2009, due out from Travelers’ Tales in January, 2009.

The first time I tracked lions, it was from the relative safety and comfort of a large-although open-Land Rover, with a loaded rifle situated handily next to the driver. At that time our guide had assured us that as long as we didn’t wear brightly colored clothes, make noise, or stand up, the animals would perceive us as part of the vehicle, and therefore not worth eating. His logic was not entirely convincing. Lions have been making their living-for, what, a couple hundred thousand years?-by figuring out what is, or is not, edible. And we were going to fool them by sitting instead of standing? I was sure the big cats were smarter than that.

But this safari was different. We were going on foot, and the strict policy at Camp Okavango was no guns. Big cats, no guns, traveling on foot . . . hmmm.

Adding to my trepidation, our guides, Robert and Rodgers, explained that if we saw lions this morning, they would be hungry, because big cats usually hunt at night. If they were still out stalking prey in the morning, it meant they hadn’t found anything to eat the night before. A crazy thought wriggled into my mind: the guides were using us as lion bait. They thought we were clueless American tourists, foolish enough to follow them deep into the big cats’ territory with no means of protection. We were.

Their plan was to travel from our camp by motorboat through the vast delta to another island, and from there to proceed on foot in search of the big cats. Many miles out, through the winding, papyrus-lined waterways, Robert announced excitedly that he had spotted dust in the trees. I didn’t see it, even with my binoculars. And I didn’t understand what dust had to do with lions. But I went along with the program. We anchored the boat, disembarked, and walked into the remote island’s open forest.

This was no Sunday stroll: the tall brown grasses hid treacherous obstacles. Elephants had eaten the relatively tender bark and roots of trees, leaving dead branches and uprooted stumps scattered everywhere. Aardvarks had dug large holes in the ground. Thorns caught on our clothing, and greedy vines grabbed at our legs. And the dung! Everywhere we had to step over dung-all kinds of it, large and small, round and elongated, fresh and dry, in varying stages of decomposition.

I could tell the difference between rhino middens and elephant dung, and was learning to differentiate buffalo from giraffe. Then I saw a new kind of dung: smaller, rounder, fresher-glistening, in fact. Was it lions’? I wondered just how far away the lions actually were, and how close we intended to get. Checking my field guide, I found that lion droppings “are similar to that of the leopard, but larger.” This was only marginally more helpful than the entry for elephants, which read, “A good way of testing the freshness of dung, is to thrust your hand into the centre of it. If the dung is fresh, it will be warm inside.” Right. Like I’m ever going to employ this methodology. They didn’t even provide a chart correlating temperature to time elapsed to distance traveled.

We were a noisy bunch of Americans, and Rodgers admonished us to “do shhh” and to “talk silently.” I noticed that Rodgers and Robert did indeed talk silently, communicating with their eyes and hands that they had heard a noise in this direction, or that they wanted us to walk that way. They reminded me of a TV SWAT team, moving swiftly and efficiently through the bad guy’s hideout just before the big shoot down. Our group, on the other hand, moved like a bunch of Keystone Cops, zigzagging randomly, tripping in the aardvark holes, backtracking around fallen trees, and fighting back with all our might when vicious vines attacked.

Robert reminded us to walk in single file, always staying together. If we fell back or got out of line, he warned, we’d look smaller and be “on the menu.” As if lions haven’t had plenty of experience in picking individuals out of a herd. As if they would look hungrily at a line of humans hiking single file and think, “That’s just some big, nasty-tasting giant caterpillar, seriously overburdened with indigestible cameras and binoculars, stumbling slowly and vulnerably through my sovereign territory. Forget it-no chow there.”

Most important, Robert said: if a lion did come towards us, “Don’t run! Stand your ground!”
Stand my ground? In the face of a charging lion? What kind of instruction was that? My heart pounded at the thought of it; my legs stiffened, and I wondered whether it would be a good thing to be frozen with fear. My hands began to sweat, and I remembered reading somewhere that humans, dogs, and other mammals whose paws sweat with anxiety do so because the sweat increases friction between the paws and a substrate, allowing for quicker getaways. I was built to run then, not to stand my ground!

I stayed near the front of the line, just behind Maureen, a psychiatric nurse from Pittsburgh. Maureen walked with her shoulders slightly hunched, took each step slowly and deliberately, shaded her eyes from the sun as she scanned the distance. I thought she looked like a professional tracker, except for her bright white Asics Gel running shoes-obviously bought new for the trip-and hot pink windbreaker. I had chosen my place carefully: surely the hot-pink-windbreaker variety of meal would be most tempting. If a lion charged, I would simply maintain my position behind the primary bait.

Maureen’s left shoelace was untied. Should I tell her?  If I did, she’d stop to tie it, and the whole single-file line would crash into us like a row of dominoes. I would be trampled by my fellow travelers, and perhaps sprain my ankle or fall into a pile of warm dung in the process. If I didn’t, Maureen might trip and fall, and be eaten alive. I kept my mouth shut.

A large, lone bird circled the sky above us. Robert identified it as a White-Backed Vulture (Gypus africanus). Our guides had amazing eyesight. Born and raised in the delta, they could identify all the birds and animals from far away. Soon a second vulture appeared, and then a third. Apparently they knew something we did not.

As we hiked deeper into the forest-way too far in to run for the boat-Robert still saw dust. We kept walking, single file, assiduously staying together, not falling back or getting out of line, doing shhh, going deeper into the forest.

At one point I was tempted to stop and photograph a Little Bee-Eater (Merops pusillus), a tiny, brilliantly colored and exquisitely beautiful bird, as it caught insects in the tall grass. But when I considered the possibility of “death by lion,” I decided to stay with the group.

“Listen!”  Rodgers and Robert both heard the lions. We kept walking. At first we didn’t hear anything, but a ways farther in we heard a low rumbling sound. “It’s the lions! Yes, and they are chasing buffalo!” The rumbling, our guides explained excitedly, was the sound of a thousand hooves. We proceeded, still in line, straining to get a look through the trees at a buffalo or a lion. Suddenly Robert hurried back into our midst, eyes wide and round, and bulging so the whites showed around their whole circumference. “They are coming this way!” he shouted hoarsely. “We are too close! Go back! Go back!”
Finally I saw the dust, a huge cloud of it, about 200 yards away and coming towards us fast. It was swirling above a herd of several hundred Cape Buffalo, and they were coming towards us fast, too. Stampeding, actually.

We had been told to stand our ground in the face of a charging lion, but what was the protocol for a buffalo attack? There was no time to ask. Our careful, single-file line disintegrated into chaos as we ran back-hats, cameras and binoculars flying. No more zigzagging to avoid holes or backtracking around fallen trees; we leapt them all heroically.  Several of our group turned out to be talented sprinters, and I personally tested the freshness of five or six piles of dung in the space of twenty seconds.

As suddenly as the stampede began, it was over. It’s interesting, what goes through one’s mind at a time like this. As soon as “Escape, escape!” had run its course, I was overwhelmed with the perfection of Nature’s Grand Plan: elephants knock down large trees, allowing grasslands to develop, which attracts grazing animals, which provide food for the lions. The aardvark holes create natural traps for the lions’ prey; the elephants’ monumental, nutrient-rich droppings fertilize the tall grasses…. Lost in the beauty of the Grand Plan, it was several minutes before I remembered Maureen. How did her untied shoelace fit in? Had I been homicidally remiss in not mentioning it earlier? Or was I simply playing my predetermined part in the “survival of the fittest”? Did Maureen stand, or did she run? Had she been trampled by stampeding buffalo, eaten by a hungry lion?

I came to my senses, surveyed the scene, and saw Maureen’s hot pink jacket halfway up a small tree, with Maureen still inside it. Apparently it had not provoked the lions. We began to regroup, and everyone seemed to have survived. The Cape Buffalo-still about 70 yards away-had also survived. They had all stopped running and were now milling about restlessly. They seemed to be more afraid of us than of the charging lions. This did not strike me as an effective adaptive behavior, but what do I know about the life of a buffalo? And what did they know about humans? At any rate, they kept their eyes on us and on the lions, which-conveniently-made it easy for us to observe the five adult lions that were now in our immediate vicinity.

Make that five hungry adult lions.

I had heard that female lions form hunting bands, and that the males don’t bother to assist them. But this was a group of four females and one large male with an impressive golden mane. What was he doing there? He was probably so famished that he couldn’t even wait for the females to make a kill. He was big, that was for sure. I couldn’t see his teeth, but I know they were long and sharp, and I’ll bet he was salivating.

I smelled the dust. Dust, and a sweat-like smell. Was it the buffalo, or the lions? Was it me? Was it fear? The lions were not yet attacking, so I had a moment to contemplate: should I turn and run, or stand and scream? Would it make a difference? Did I have a choice? I would like to report that Rodgers and Robert were unfazed, but that would not be entirely true. Actually, they looked anxious. They had no guns. They were responsible for a dozen travelers. And we were 70 yards away from five hungry lions.

The big cats paced around the edges of the buffalo herd, eyeing one individual, then another. What if one looked at me? Should I make eye contact, or avoid it? I began to feel panicky. Robert’s words echoed in my mind,  “If a lion does come towards you, don’t run!” Legs locked, I stood my ground, and felt proud of myself for having the presence of mind to follow instructions in a crisis. But then it occurred to me: if I stood my ground, and everyone else retreated, did that make me clever? Or did it make me lion food?

Fortunately, my survival did not depend on my own cleverness: Rodgers and Robert took control, instructing us to remain facing the lions and walk slowly backwards, away from them. We did so. Soon, it was safe to turn and walk-a bit more quickly-back to the boat. When we were safely on board, and motoring back to camp, I marveled at the beauty of Nature’s Grand Plan, at green papyrus against intense blue skies and the exquisite deliciousness of a bottle of cold beer. Life is good, when you’re not on the menu.

This story will appear in Travelers’ Tales Venturing in Puglia: the Land Between Two Seas, due out in December, 2008.

To paraphrase a well-known aphorism, a journey of one thousand excesses begins with a single bite. And—one single bite after another—I happily ate my way through Puglia, in southern Italy. Anticipating the visit was a gastronomic adventure in itself. Puglia has a long coastline, an agricultural heritage and a tradition of frugality. It is known for healthful and unpretentious cuisine, influenced by centuries of interactions, whether by trade or invasion, with Greeks, Byzantines, Arabs, French and Spaniards. My heart was set on tasting the local specialties, particularly the superb seafood, burrata (a rich, fresh mozzarella) and orecchiette pasta. But my heart—and my waistline—expanded to embrace lowly vegetables, ripe fruit and humble bread as gourmet highlights. In Puglia, I discovered, fine food and folkways combine to make an irresistible repast.

Our culinary experiences, which I quickly came to regard as orgies of the very best kind, typically began between one and two o’clock in the afternoon and lasted until three-thirty or four, once even five o’clock. As in many other countries, the long meal here is timed to coincide with the hot afternoon sun, which precludes heavy labor both indoors and out. But no matter what one’s vocation, a meal in a hurry is an unthinkable insult in Italy, where sharing food is one of life’s simple—and essential—pleasures. And the fact that the event was stretched out over such a long period of time somehow made my holiday gluttony seem almost acceptable.

We ate at least five courses at each meal, beginning with antipasti. These were typically five or six small, very flavorful dishes, such as mozzarella tied into a small knot (nodino) or fresh seafood. Often there would be julienned beets or carrots dressed with olive oil and vinegar. Ristorante Orsa Maggiore’s antipasti included zucchini flowers fried in a light, tempura-like batter; and pittule, a fried croquette-like dish made with a batter of flour, potato and yeast surrounding a bit of blanched cauliflower. I never managed to choose among the antipasti. In fact, I felt compelled to try every one—in the name of culinary research—and a small bite never seemed to be quite enough. The antipasti were offered in such quantity and variety that I was inevitably satisfied after sampling them, but the main meal was yet to come.

After the antipasti we were presented with a “first course” of pasta and a “second course” of meat, the portions of which were inevitably generous and understandably quite filling. These were followed by a palate-cleansing raw vegetable course at which slices of carrot, cucumber or finocchio (fennel bulb) might be served. At the restaurant Trullo d’Oro we cleared our palates with raw slices of a pale green, slightly sweet vegetable called carocello, specific to this region, which reminded me of a honeydew melon and others of a cucumber. Next came the fresh fruit course featuring sweet watermelon slices; perfect, firm-but-juicy Bing cherries; small, tart apricots and sweet plums during our June visit. We finished with cookies or a cake course and then a serving, if one dared, of strong Limoncello liqueur. An espresso was available to top it off.

The meals were so huge and so delicious that I began to eat myself sick on a daily basis. And I began making promises to God: every day, I swore that if I could only finish this one last meal—sampling just a bite or two of everything that was offered—and then make it through the afternoon, I would never again overindulge. Every afternoon I pictured myself virtuously pushing away from the table at the next meal, maintaining my figure and my health. And every evening I sinned again, salivating the instant I saw the menu.

Mussels were among the most difficult to resist. Don Carmelo Ristorante Pizzeria served them in the peasant style—that is, combined with other ingredients into a one-dish meal, characteristic of this part of Italy because it was faster for working families both to prepare and to consume. Preparing a mussel tiella (casserole) is quick and simple: slices of zucchini and onion are layered together in a baking pan. Chunks of peeled potatoes are added and steamed, opened mussels in their shells are arranged on top, then layered with rinsed rice and sliced tomatoes. Finish with Pecorino cheese and breadcrumbs and bake in a hot oven for half an hour.

One taste and I became a mussel maniac. When cooked, the smooth, flesh-like morsels tightened and huddled—warm and peach-colored, sweet and tender—at the edge of their rough blue-black shells. They hunkered there, clinging, small and succulent, as if anticipating the approach of my hungry tongue and teeth. The mussels’ slippery folds released trickles of the dish’s rich juices, inviting exploration. (Simultaneously providing plenty of selenium, vitamin B12, zinc and folate.) I savored them at every opportunity.

Another local staple is purea di fave (broadbean puree). Many broadbean recipes call for the addition of cooked potatoes or a little milk for smoothness and to extend the dish. The heavy, pale puree is traditionally served with bread and a counterbalancing cicorie—wild chicory, salted and boiled, then cooked up with olive oil to a deep, bitter green. In the one-dish version, the chicory and fried cubes of dry bread called cecamariti (“husband-blinders”) are stirred together with the bean puree.

The origin of the expression “husband-blinders” to describe food is not clear. The most likely explanation, in my opinion, is that leftovers are used to create a dish so tasty that it dazzles—or blinds—a husband into thinking his wife has slaved for hours in the kitchen. But there is also the possibility the expression was used to describe a dish so filling it will placate a hungry husband, or a meal so delicious it will drive a husband to overeat, and subsequently to fall asleep. My favorite explanation suggests that cecamariti have the power of “putting husbands to bed, leaving wives free to meet their lovers.”

Husband-blinding may be the most picaresque of Puglia’s culinary traditions, but it is certainly not the only one. Fortified farmhouses—called masseria—dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries dot the landscape. Inside, the masseria resembled agricultural factories: wheat was separated, grapes and olives were crushed, and cheese was made. Today, converted masseria continue their tradition as an important part of Italy’s agritourism industry, providing intimate venues for weddings, cooking classes, romantic vacations and wellness spas. They still use house-grown or locally produced fruits and vegetables and often make their own wine, cheese and olive oil.

At Masseria Tenuta Pedale the fresh fruits and vegetables were irresistible. Here I discovered a delicious way to prepare carrots: sott’olio (under oil), parboiled and served with capers and a sprinkle of salt. Zucchini and eggplant are also traditionally prepared sott’olio: first they are salted and weighted to draw out moisture, then they are julienned, simmered with a little vinegar and water, cooled and dressed with garlic, mint and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Trullo d’Oro in Alberobello served beetroots prepared in a similar fashion. I had expected balsamic vinegar or perhaps red wine vinegar, but in Puglia a simple white vinegar suffices.

At Trullo d’Oro I also enjoyed a perfect plate of orecchiette (little ears), another specialty of the region. These small pieces of pasta were traditionally made by local women, who pulled a bit of dough off a larger piece and used their forefingers to poke it into a “little ear,” ideally shaped for catching and retaining sauces. My favorite way to eat orecchiette was with a sauce of hot fresh tomato chunks, a shaving of hard Pecorino cheese and fresh basil leaves. Something about this dish made me feel very naughty, as though I were actually chewing on the ears of little children, so I was tempted to hurry through it. But a perfectly al dente mouthful requires that one slow down and savor the flavors and textures.

La Cantina in Alberobello served one of the most irresistible culinary temptations: burrata, a local mozzarella that is simply, deliciously addictive. A large burrata is the size of an orange, a small one more like an egg. In fact, it reminds me of a soft-boiled egg, although round rather than oval in shape, with an outside layer the consistency of cooked egg white. Inside, a silky white melding of fresh mozzarella and cream bursts from its round white rind and spills forth like a soft-boiled yolk, oozing onto the plate, running together with the pool of golden olive oil that sits beneath the cheese. The taste is as creamy as one would expect, yet light enough that I could eat quite a lot—and I did.

Luckily for cheese lovers like myself, the companionably hearty Pugliese bread was served everywhere, its light, yeasty fragrance wafting from each restaurant table. Loaves have been made in the same way for centuries, and are deservedly world famous. Legend has it that the Roman poet Horace described them in 37 BCE as “by far the best bread to be had, so good that the wise traveler takes a supply of it for his onward journey.”

Traditionally, Pugliese bread was baked into large loaves with an exceptionally crunchy crust for a long shelf life—easy to send off with a working husband who might be fishing or herding sheep for days at a time. Dense and pale straw-colored, its ingredients are hard wheat flour, water, salt and biga, a yeasted starter. Multiple long rise cycles and baking at gradually decreasing temperatures are the secrets to producing the chewy loaf; spritzing with water as it bakes produces the characteristic crust. Pugliese bread is even useful when stale; it is porous enough to absorb other ingredients and therefore ideal for making crostini and bruschetta, lightly toasted bread slices spread with olive oil, cheese, tomato, meat sauce or other savory toppings. And of course it is essential for the infamous cecamariti.

Good as Pugliese bread is, Il Gioiello (The Jewel) in Alberobello has improved it. Their version, dotted with crunchy almonds and liberally studded with chunks of dried fig—ripe, sweet and moist—served steaming hot, is the most delicious bread I have ever tasted. It was served with a sampling of fig jam, onion marmalade, and marmellata di peperoncino e cioccolato—a remarkable conserve of rich, dark chocolate spiced up with hot peppers. As I perused the menu, I made a mental note to follow Horace’s advice and stock up on a few loaves for my onward journey.

And the figs! In Oria, Alla Corta di Hyria’s figs with balsamic reduction were so succulent they inspired me to a When Harry Met Sally-like dining performance. Warm sweet fig halves slid into my mouth like oysters; their soft, furry skin a welcome surprise. Eyes closed, head tilted back, I settled into a moment of gustatory ecstasy, the fig’s firm roundness heavy on my tongue, until the sweet-sharp tang of a sugared balsamic reduction filled my mouth and returned me to consciousness. Which was a good thing, because I would not have wanted to miss the rich, earthy flavors of crostini con crema di tartufo: rounds of crunchy toast topped with creamy truffle spread.

L’Ancora (The Anchor) in Monopoli served one of our finest meals, a two-and-a-half hour festival that began with a surprisingly tender little octopus. One bite followed another as we moved to what may well have been the most exquisite dish of our visit: lobster-drenched spaghetti. The silky sauce was deep adobe in color, thick and bisque-like, intensely flavored with lobster and peppered with small pieces of the sweet seafood. Ironically, this is the one dish I had tasted at home. Or perhaps it is not a coincidence at all that one of the finest recipes of the region should have been appropriated. In an attempt to recreate the meal in my own kitchen, I googled “recipe for spaghetti with lobster sauce” and got 156,000 results. If only I knew which one L’Ancora used.

But my final large meal in Alberobello was by far the most memorable. Bepe, a docent in the olive oil museum, invited my fellow travel writer Chrysa and me to his family’s home in a multi-domed trulli in the countryside beyond Alberobello. Outside, olive and almond trees circled the house and huge, pink-blooming hydrangea brightened the front yard. Inside, a gay multicolored tablecloth peeked out from beneath more than a dozen dishes Bepe’s mother had prepared for her family, the in-laws and cousins who lived next door, their grandfather and ourselves. I surreptitiously undid the button at my waistline and settled in for the feast.

The locally caught octopus was tender, light and delicious. Cold, thin slices of beef served with a smooth sauce of mayonnaise and tuna were equally appealing. A cool insalata di riso (rice salad) proved perfect for the hot day: pieces of tuna and sausage provided protein, and the light dressing of lemon juice and olive oil with capers added enough sharpness to balance the flavor. Bepe’s family shared anchovies and omelets, salad, bread, olives, cucumber, pizza, cheeses and more. Then we moved outside for fruit, two cakes, gelato and Limoncello. Not speaking Italian, I missed much of the conversation, but the hospitality was unmistakable. As my journey of one thousand excesses drew to a close, another maxim twisted in my imagination: A waist is a terrible thing to mind.

This story will appear in the Travelers’ Tales anthology, Venturing in Puglia, a Land Between Two Seas, due out in December, 2008.

The instructions were unnerving: Boil olive oil in a hot pan, lay the horsemeat in flat, and turn it when it starts to rise. I tried hard not to visualize horseflesh rearing up out of a pan of boiling oil.

We were in search of the “Puglian delicacy” I had read about in a guidebook and was determined not to miss. My plan was to find a restaurant that served horsemeat, convince one of my more adventuresome traveling companions to order it, and then to beg the smallest bite, just a tiny taste-after all, it was a regional specialty. But things did not work out according to my plan.

I first asked at Casa Nova in Alberobello. It was a white-tablecloth restaurant with a large menu, and seemed a likely source. But I was met with a puzzled expression. No, they did not serve carne de cavalle.

Perhaps the waiter did not understand my broken Italian. “Horse, cavalle?” I repeated, pantomiming a gallop. I felt foolish pantomiming in a nice restaurant, but I was halfway around the world and really wanted to try horsemeat.

“No. No cavalle.”

No matter; we still had more than a week to go. I would find it at the next restaurant. I persisted at Osteria degli Angeli in Lecci, at Ristorante Orsa Maggiore in Castro Marina and at La Sommita in Ostuni. Surely these fine Puglian establishments served the local specialty. But not a single one offered it. I tried requesting carne equine, thinking perhaps I had used the wrong word, but no matter how I asked, horsemeat was simply not on the menu. I enlisted the assistance of my travel companions: would they help me find a menu with horsemeat?

“Horsemeat?” MJ asked incredulously. “You want to eat horsemeat? Why?”

“It’s a specialty of the region,” I explained.

“I thought you were a vegetarian. How could you eat Mr. Ed?”

“I’m not completely. And I just want to try him. I mean it.”

They promised to help look. Days passed, but no one found cavalle. (If I had not been looking myself, I would have doubted their sincerity.) Taking a seat one evening at La Cantina, I had nearly given up the search, when Connie and Linda spotted Involtino al sugo di vitello o puledro on the menu and alerted me from across the room.

“Rolls of veal or horse and tomatoes,” the translation read.

There it was.

In that moment, when I expected to feel delight, a seed of doubt arose. I was not certain whether I could actually eat an equine. I had never owned a horse; my personal experience of them was not unlike my experience of cows, visible chiefly in rural fields, and from a distance. I eat steak occasionally, but I began to worry that horses might somehow be different. Could I actually consume a Seabiscuit steak? A Black Beauty roast? Filet o’ Flicka?

My companions were watching, waiting-probably thinking I would not go through with it. I ordered the involtino.

The waiter raised his eyebrow in what I took to be a disapproving look. Although horsemeat was listed on the menu, he informed me, La Cantina was not serving it tonight.

I began to wonder whether the dish really existed. Perhaps it was the Puglian equivalent of an urban legend, making for colorful copy in the guidebooks, teasing tourists, even appearing on the occasional menu, but never materializing in an actual meal. And perhaps that was just as well.

But Annelize assured me that horsemeat is indeed eaten in Europe: “It is common in France, where culinary appreciation surpasses sentimentality,” she explained. This perspective momentarily renewed my resolve, as I am not accustomed to being accused of sentimentality. “I ate it a lot as a student in Holland. It is very tender in comparison to the average beef,” Annelize continued. “The muscle structure is somewhat coarser, the taste a little sweeter. I imagine it is comparable to human flesh; that is what cannibals report.”

Cannibals? I did not like the direction this was heading!

The expression on my face must have matched my flagging enthusiasm, because later that evening Chrysa took it upon herself to assist in the quest. Since I had had no success at restaurants, we switched to butcher shops. If they served the restaurant business, they would be able to tell us which restaurants to try. We located a butcher shop that sold beef, veal, goat, sheep, pork, chicken … everything, it seemed, except horsemeat.

“Si vendono il carne de cavalle, do you sell horsemeat?”

“Cavalle? No.”

Did they know where we might find it?

“No.”

We had better luck at a second butcher shop. Although they did not carry cavalle, they reluctantly sent us “down the hill, turn left, then turn right.” We followed the directions, and ended up at a deli. No cavalle.

Chrysa persisted, searching up and down Alberobello’s steep, narrow streets. Three hundred meters down the main road, Largo Martellotta, she saw the sign: Macelleria Carne Equina. (Surely the locals all knew it.) A second sign outside the shop featured a large horse’s head.

Inside, Giovanni was sweeping up for the night. Not that there was anything to sweep; the store was spotless. All the meat had been put away for the evening; the empty glass cases and stainless steel counter sparkled. Gleaming white tile walls were sparsely decorated with framed photos of horses and donkeys. I was relieved that they had already closed.

“Si vendono il carne de cavalle?” Chrysa asked, poking her head through the open door.
“Si. Would you like some?” Giovanni pulled out a chunk of meat the size of … well, the size of a horse’s head. It wasn’t a head, of course. It was bright red and marbled with white, and it gave me the creeps.

This was the real thing. He cut us two thin steaks.

At five euro and change for almost half a kilogram, our horsemeat cost less than 12 euro/kg. Lamb, by way of comparison, was 20 euro/kg in the butcher shop down the street; veal was 22. Suddenly I understood why no one had wanted to serve me cavalle: it was budget food, most commonly eaten by students and others for whom price was a major consideration.

Giovanni showed us four pieces of paper, neatly stapled together. The first was a Certificato Sanitario, a health certificate pronouncing the meat livero consumo. (My best guess at a translation was freed for eating. I don’t think the horse’s liver was being singled out.) The remaining three papers documented Giovanni’s purchase of the horse that had supplied our steaks, the name and address of the seller, our horse’s name and birthday, the name of the ranch where it grew up, its parents, their bloodline, the date and place of the slaughter … the horse’s upbringing and education, for all I know.

My resolve weakened.

Giovanni’s wife, Dina, explained how to prepare the steaks. “Boil olive oil in a hot pan, lay the horsemeat in flat, and turn it when it starts to rise.”

“Then what?”

“Sale, salt.” Realizing that we were tourists and probably did not have our own supply of seasonings, Dina was kind enough to put a little salt into a plastic bag and send it home with us. A pinch of salt after we cooked it was all the steak needed, she explained.

Chrysa and I thanked Giovanni and Dina and left them to lock up the shop. We stopped at the deli to pick up a few other things for dinner, in case the horsemeat tasted awful. Back at our trullo, Chrysa fried the steaks according to Dina’s instructions; they “rose” in the pan when cooked, just as she had said they would. I cut up fresh tomatoes and mozzarella. We rearranged some wildflowers MJ had gathered on her morning jog, played Chrysa’s new Al Bano Platinum CD on my laptop computer, and set as pretty a table as we could. We wanted a pleasant ambiance for our first taste.

Chrysa was braver than I; she tried it first.

She liked it.

I swallowed my tomato and had a gulp of water before slicing off a piece of meat. I wasn’t going to eat it with anything else; I wanted to really taste the horse. The first bite was moist and tender. It was delicious!

It tasted just like beef.