Norcino course

The term norcino comes from Norcia, from which many butchers of pigs came and indicates the person in charge of the slaughtering and subsequent sale of cured meats and meats derived from them. This term can also refer to the manager of the butchery, or the shop where all the products derived from the processing of pork are prepared and sold. In some areas the tradition, authorized by the health authorities, of calling the butcher to slaughter the pig in the home is still alive. The custom, in the houses and farms of peasants, to raise at least one pig, even if this zootechnical activity was not part of the agricultural activities of the family, very widespread in the past, meant that the butcher was a peddler who was "hired" in the period in which traditionally the pig was killed, that is between the day of Sant'Andrea (November 30) and that of Sant'Antonio Abate (January 17). The butchers known in ancient Rome as experts in the art of castrating pigs and working their meat had a remarkable manual skill that made them suitable even for small operations such as incising abscesses or pulling teeth or splinting some fracture. In the Middle Ages, from Norcia and neighboring villages and hamlets such as Abeto and Todiano, the "butchers" were the slaughtering and bagging workers of pork, who moved seasonally to various locations in central Italy to sell sausages and slaughtering pigs in cities and countryside. Given their familiarity with knives, it was not uncommon for the common people to turn to them for simple surgical operations, instead of the more expensive ones. It could have been the removal of tumors or operations for hernia and cataracts, and they were also in great demand for the castration of children who had to be initiated into an opera or theatrical career as "white voices", but of course this could not avoid the lack of consideration they enjoyed in the medical field.