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Garganica goat

Slow Food Presidium · Meats and cured meats · Puglia

Apulica editorial team · Sources checked:

In brief

History and origin

The Garganica goat, called razza nustrala, meaning "our own", in dialect, is an ancient native breed born on the Gargano promontory, where livestock farming has always been central to the economy. From the promontory it later spread to other parts of Puglia and to neighbouring regions.

Its history is bound up with that of the shepherds. In the roughest areas the goat was known, not by chance, as the "poor man's cow", because its hardiness let it live and produce on poor ground. Transhumant culture needed foods that would keep through the winter months and on long journeys along the grassy droving tracks, and the goat provided both cheeses and musciska, dried meat.

The name musciska comes from the Arabic mosammed, "something hard", which describes this travelling food well. Today the Slow Food Presidium, supported by the Gargano National Park, brings together breeders and butchers to keep the breed and its products alive.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Capra garganica · Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano — Capra garganica · Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano — Rignano, la musciska

Area and method of production

The Garganica is raised free-range on the promontory's pastures and in its woods. Its chief quality is extreme hardiness: it adapts to difficult ground, and it is not unusual to see it browsing spiny holly, thistles or tufts of grass on rocky cliffs. The Gargano counts about twenty thousand goats, many of them of this breed.

It is a dual-purpose animal, for milk and meat, producing about 200-250 litres of milk a year. The milk goes into two traditional cheeses. For canestrato it is warmed to 37 °C and kid rennet is added; the curd is shaped in traditional wicker baskets and dry-salted. Cacioricotta, made in small quantities, was born to use all the milk's proteins, including those that normally end up in ricotta.

The leanest meat, trimmed of fat and cut into strips, is seasoned with chilli, wild fennel, garlic and sea salt, rests in containers for about a day and is then hung on wooden racks, where it dries for about a week until completely dry.

Sources: Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano — Capra garganica · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Capra garganica

How to recognise it

The Garganica goat is recognisable at a glance: it has a long, smooth, glossy jet-black coat, a small head with the characteristic forelock and a long beard under the chin. The horns, present in both sexes, are somewhat flattened at the sides and twisted, their tips spreading apart in an arc. Males can reach 85 centimetres at the withers, while females are noticeably smaller.

Its products have a clear identity too. Canestrato wheels have a light brown rind and a pale to straw-coloured paste depending on age, crumbly, with an intense scent of grass and dried fruit; the flavour becomes more aromatic and piquant as the cheese ages.

Musciska comes in strips 20-30 centimetres long and 2-3 centimetres thick, fully dried and seasoned with chilli and wild fennel.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Capra garganica · Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano — Capra garganica · Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano — Rignano, la musciska

In the kitchen

Garganica goat canestrato is enjoyed in two ways depending on its age: younger as a table cheese, more mature for grating. Cacioricotta, made in small quantities, is the other cheese in this breed's dairy tradition.

Musciska is the most distinctive product. In its dried, seasoned form, typical above all of Rignano Garganico, it is eaten as it is, in strips, as shepherds on the move once did. Elsewhere on the Gargano the same name refers to a different dish: goat meat is boiled, marinated in vinegar or wine with herbs and finally roasted. This second version is the traditional dish of the patron saint's festival in Sannicandro Garganico.

Musciska is available all year, while the cheeses follow the goats' lactation and are concentrated between spring and summer.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Capra garganica · Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano — Capra garganica · Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano — Rignano, la musciska

Where to taste it

The Garganica goat's territory is the Gargano promontory, in the province of Foggia, within the National Park that supports the Presidium. Here, among woods, pastures and rock faces, you can come across flocks grazing freely.

To taste dried musciska the place to go is Rignano Garganico, where it is sold mainly in the village butchers' shops. Sannicandro Garganico is home to the marinated and roasted version, tied to the patron saint's festival. The goat's-milk cheeses, canestrato and cacioricotta, are made by the promontory's breeders who belong to the Presidium and are found mostly in spring and summer.

A trip into the inland Gargano, away from the coast, makes it possible to combine these stops with the park's old town centres and landscapes, following the thread of the pastoral life that shaped the promontory.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Capra garganica · Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano — Capra garganica · Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano — Rignano, la musciska

Protection

When

  • The sources consulted give no months.

Where

Puglia