Directions

Each week, the walls of every Vishnu temple on our planet hear the recital of the Taittriya Upanishad:

Oh, Wonderful! Oh, Wonderful! Oh, Wonderful!

I’m food! I’m food, I’m food!

I’m a food-eater! I’m a food-eater! I’m a food-eater!

The words were written and least two and a half millennia ago. The words are commonly interpreted as a point when during a sacrifice, a Brahmin priest achieves a mystical union with the universal Brahman. It becomes possible through identification with both food and the food-eater. At such point, the priest both pervades and transcends the matter, uniting all in all.

I can argue that the same is achieved when one partakes of the universal Brahman in the particularity of a decent coppa. Just smell it, touch its silkiness decadence, taste this perfection. Don’t you feel touching something that underlines the whole universe? Don’t you see how everything is interconnected? Can’t you observe that this world is a mere illusion and underneath is there is only one reality? Oh, Wonderful!

Recipe:

Weight at the beginning for coppa #1: 1495grm; at the end of the mystical transformation: 979gr.

Coppa #2: from 1067gr to 585gr.

Sacrificial formula requires 2.5% sea salt; 0.25% cure#2; 0.03% cloves; 0.5% Poivre di Sichuan; 0.4% brown sugar; 0.7% dried Thai Chili, some brandy; vacuum; fridge. There the coppas remained for a prolonged time – from December 29th to January 25th. I wish to claim the virtues of my patience, but it was simply because I could not allocate time to deal with them earlier. After removing from the vacuum, coppas were washed, dried, dusted with the same spices, encased into the collagen casings and cold-smoked for 32hrs with the heavy smoke of 70\30 pecan\apple. Then – in the Curing Chamber until June 16th.

Taste: mature, deep, complex, only lightly spicy(hot). I’ve sliced only some and will let the rest continue to mature in the fridge under the vacuum.