Spezzatino di Cinghiale is a hearty stew made from wild boar. The boar is marinated in red wine with many strong spices and herbs and cooked a long time with some tomatoes and may even include chocolate and/or olives. It always seems that this is the one exception to the Italian “less is more” style of cooking. It’s done, folks will tell you, to mask the “gamey” taste of the boar. Masking is another exception to traditional Italian culinary rules.
Tuscany and Umbria seem to offer more boar in restaurants than other regions. Perhaps its due to the need to keep the population of these animals down; after all, they can wreck a small vineyard in a night with those big tusks looking for grubs and other fine edibles that hide in the roots of plants. Today they are even pests inside villages.
In many restaurants the dish is served with polenta. Spezzatino di Cinghiale is a very hearty dish with strong flavors, and you don’t need to suffer a big primo piatto of pasta when having it.
Another way to taste this delicacy is to order it as a Ragu di Cinghiale over pasta, a common way many restaurants serve it.