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The MAD-ness of “Carne e Spirito” and Dario Cecchini

Length: 2 mins

“The poetry of butchery.”
“This is an ancient art.”
“Respect the animal.”

This man loves meat. He loves the craft (for craft it definitely is) of butchery. He loves the animals that he butchers and then serves in his restaurants in Panzano. And to hear him speak, albeit filtered through the translation into English from the more melodic sounding Italian, is to understand a little about the poetry of what he does [in case you hadn’t guessed, I too love pigs & butchers, so have no qualms about referring to them & poetry in the same breath].

© Homme magazine, Greece 2014

Obliged, by the death of his father in 1976, to take over the family business and become the 9th generation of the Cecchini’s to work this trade in the village, he became a reluctant butcher; until this sudden change of direction, he’d been studying to become a vet at the University of Pisa.

You wouldn’t know that today; now he has a stripped down, movie-star quality to him — now this man dominates the stage at the MAD food conference in Copenhagen in front of 500 fellow chefs from around the world, quoting Dante whilst cutting into the pig & cleaning his hands of the blood, shit and innards from what looks like an Oxford & Sandy sow.

Dario and the guts © MADfoods 2014
Dario and the guts © MADfoods 2014

This is a 26 minute long rhapsody on meat, butchery & life. It’s well worth 26 minutes of your time. Watch it. Now.

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