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“Pecora alla callara” (also called “ajiu cutturo” or “alla cottora”) is one of the most characteristic dishes of the Abruzzo mountains, linked over the millennia to transhumance. It takes many hours to prepare and cook. The mutton must be left for three days until it is high, then it is cubed and cooked slowly in a pot, with plenty of water, for at least three hours, taking care not to let the meat get too dry. After boiling and skimming off the grease, to rid the meat of the typical strong mutton smell, it is drained and cooked again in a large pot for a further three hours with salt, oil, garlic, pepper and other spices. When well reduced, it is served hot. For centuries sheep have represented the wealth of the people of L’Aquila Province and the Abruzzo uplands. In his book, Descrizione del Regno di Napoli [Description of the Kingdom of Naples], dated 1597, Scipione Mazzella wrote that there were about four and a half million head of sheep in Abruzzo. In ancient times, the road that ran from L’Aquila to Florence was called the “way of wool and gold”, due to the enormous trade in resources that took place between Tuscany and Abruzzo. The recipe for mutton “alla callara” has its roots in pastoral traditions and probably derives from the practice of giving employees who guarded the herds the adult sheep that, for some reason, could no longer be used or sold, because they were lame or in poor health, or sterile in the case of ewes. Cooking took place in the open, as it still does today, on special commemorative celebrations related to transhumance. A sturdy dish, deeply Mediterranean, conjuring up with overpowering strength the origins of Abruzzo’s regional culture.
