Cured meats of Central Italy

Unlike in the North, where they use various types of meat (pork, beef, lamb, goat and poultry), cured meats in central Italy are made almost exclusively with pork, and are not usually aged for long. On this ideal trip in the central regions we have selected some of the most typical and traditional cured meats:

Sanbudello. Typical of the Casentino, is a soft, dark red sausage, due to the traditional use of the blood parts of the pig, discarded from the production of hams and salamis: heart, diaphragm, tongue, with the addition of bacon and cut-outs of most valuable parts. The Sanbudello is produced, since centuries, between September and May: the meat is chopped and mixed with garlic, salt, pepper, fennel seeds, cloves and red wine then stuffed into natural casings. It is eaten both fresh, grilled, or raw after a seasoning that can range from four weeks to six months.

Ciauscolo. Of ancient origin. Always produced in the provinces of Macerata, Ancona and Ascoli Piceno. Not to cut into slices but to be spread on bread thanks to its creamy texture, and the tradition wants it on the table at Easter. The dough is made ​​with tasty pork meat: bacon, shoulder, neck, lard, ham and pork loin. To this is added a portion of fat, belly and rump. The dough is finely chopped and milled three times, using dies increasingly smaller to reach the desired softness. The mixture is cured with salt, pepper, crushed garlic and white wine. After proper rest is stuffed into natural entrails and put to dry in the smoke. It is usually eaten fresh, after 20-30 days, but it’s great even after a longer seasoning.

Corallina. It is probably the most famous Umbrian salami in the world, now produced in the province of Perugia and Terni. The preparation consists of three parts pork fine (shoulder and ham) finely chopped and one of fat, cut into small cubes. It is cured with salt, crushed pepper and in grains, toghether with garlic macerated in wine. It is stuffed into natural pork entrails, resting a few days in an enviroment heated with wood stoves, and sometimes slightly smoked by burning juniper berries. The seasoning varies from three to five months depending on the size.

Sausage of Castro dei Volsci. From this pretty little town in the Valle del Sacco comes this sausage, made from the finest cuts of Large White and Landrace pigs reared on farms in the area and fed exclusively with bran, corn, fava beans and acorns. The pigs are slaughtered only when the body weight is considered ideal for proper maturation of the meat: when they are about 180 kg. For the lean parts are used shoulder and thigh, while for the fat is preferred lard, bacon, neck and throat. Everything is chopped with knife and cured with salt, pepper, garlic and orange zest, then stuffed into pork entrails. Hand-tied, the sausages are cooked fresh on the grill, otherwise are seasoned for about 20 days in a room with wood burning fireplace, with the smoke of oak.

Mortadella Campotosto. Ovals and always in pairs, are made with lean first choice pork meat, as shoulder, loin and ham united with lard and bacon. Fine-grained, the mixture is cured with salt, pepper and local herbs, then it rests in a cold enviroment for about a week. A column of lard of about 10cm is inserted inside the mixture, then stuffed into natural entrails. The binding, handmade, is held by a stick which gives the sausage the characteristic shape of a egg with wedges, and which serves to tighten as the dimensions are reduced in aging. Each pair of Mortadella Campotosto is in fact hanging in a room heated by a wood burning fireplace (with beech and oak), then aged naturally for about three months.

Molisan Soppressata. It is composed primarily of valuable swine meat as fillets, loins and neck to which is added an amount of not more than 3% of fat. Once minced, the meat is cured with salt, black and white pepper and olive oil, then left to stand overnight at a maximum temperature of 4 ° C. Stuffed into pig’s entrails and subjected to crushing for a couple of days, is then to dryed for about a week in ventilated rooms, warmed by a fireplace, which also gives a very slight smoke. The aging process itself, which can be up to six months, is done in cool cellars. If not consumed immediately can be stored in lard or oil in glass jars.