Polenta con Ragù di Cinghiale (Traditional Italian Polenta with Wild Boar Ragù) In the Veneto prealps a wild boar ragu is never served on pasta. It is poured over polenta, and that single fact changes how the sauce is built. Pasta wants a ragu that clings; polenta wants one that soaks. The meat is cut larger, the liquid left looser, the fat not skimmed, because all of it has somewhere to go on a bed of maize that behaves like a sponge. The boar is braised in Valpolicella with

Pappardelle al Ragù di Cervo, Ginepro, Pecorino e Riduzione di Amarone (Italian Pappardelle with Venison Ragù, Juniper, Pecorino and Amarone Reduction) This is a Valpolicella plate rather than a Tuscan one, and the difference is written into every element. The ragu is built on Amarone, the dried grape wine of the hills above Verona, and finished with a separate reduction of the same wine painted around the pasta at the last moment. Juniper, not rosemary, carries the woodland

Raviolo Aperto al Cervo Brasato al Cannonau, Crema di Porcini, Cioccolato Fondente e Tartufo Nero (Italian Open Raviolo with Cannonau Braised Venison, Porcini Cream, Dark Chocolate and Black Truffle) An open raviolo is an argument about proportion. Two thin sheets of egg pasta, no sealed border, and whatever sits between them has nowhere to hide. Here that is Sardinian red deer braised three hours in Cannonau, a porcini cream built on mushroom soaking liquid, dark chocolate m