'Nduja!

From streets to stars

Last year some friends and I went to Calabria to visit a class mate of us. It was his birthday.
While we were at his birthday party, one of our friend was hungry and on the table there were a lot of typical dishes. He took a plate on the table, he thought that it was a big piece of cake, but he didn’t know how wrong he was! After the first piece of that "strange cake", he changed color and he began to sweat. At first we laughed about that joke, but then we started worrying because we knew that it wasn't a cake at all but a very very spicy sausage. He asked for help and we passed him a glass of milk because it is one of the most effective methods against spicy. Water or other similar drink do not help much against the spicy. Since that day every time our friend eats spicy he holds a glass of milk in his hand.. just in case!

The name of the food our friend confused with a cake is 'nduja or simply duja. The name originates from the Latin word "inducere" that means to introduce. 'nduja consists of meat and spices. The anduja is typically associated  to the entire Calabria: it is usually made of fatty pork meat with the addition of Calabrian hot pepper, stuffed into the blind gut and  finally smoked. The 'nduja is consumed on a slice of toasted bread or it can taste even better if used fried to cook a sauce.

Glossary

Nduja: meat, and extra spicy spreadable Calabrian.
Spicy: having an agreeably pungent taste
Spreadable: it’s like a cream that you can spread, for example, on a piece of bread
Classmate: when someone is with you in your school classroom
Sweat: when you feel hot water evaporates off the surface of your skin
Laugh: when someone find something funny he laughs
Joke: it’s like a prank, a little game with friends
Sausage: highly seasoned minced meat stuffed in casings
Spices: any of a variety of pungent aromatic vegetable substances used for flavoring food
Fatty: containing or composed of fat
Blind gut: initial part of the intestine
Slice: a thin flat piece cut off of some foods
Sauce: flavorful relish served as an accompaniment to food