Meat.
The Abruzzo cooking is simple, and has, as a common factor, the natural products of the various areas. Inland, kids, lambs and sheep reared on the pastures in the high mountains, take first place. Lamb holds the leading role as "the main course" thanks to its particularly tasty, tender meat; it is cooked in different ways according to the traditions of the different localities.
We can move from the famous "cacio e ova" (cheese and egg) with roast lamb and its kebabs; from the lamb's head stuffed with plain stew; the "mazzarelle", morsels of the iamb's offal wrapped in fresh green leaves and tied with gut, then getting to other preparations of an older kind, such as "l'agnello incaporchiato" with roast potatoes and "la pecora al cotturo". For years pork has represented the primary source of sustenance for the Abruzzo peasant families that used every single part of the animal, even the inedible parts (from the nails to the bones, for example, boiled with the fat to make soap). The meat is eaten fresh but, above all, salted and packed in sacks through the year; and finally the blood is sweetened with cocoa and is turned into "sanguinaccio" which, spread on bread, substitutes superbly chocolate. Pork is used to prepare "cif e ciaf', an exquisite dish based on ribs, sirloin, and bacon fried with spicy peppers. The origins of the following recipe go back far in time: pork taken from a piglet which is boned, rolled and stuffed with various spices and aromas and cooked in a wood-burning oven. Turkey is another protagonist in the Abruzzo kitchen, especially a Teramo kitchen, where it is prepared "alla canzanese".