Brief history of Salami and Cold Meats
The history of salami and cold meats and, more generally, that of salted and seasoned meat, began with man and his need to keep this foodstuff edible for months. In ancient Rome the Latina word "salumen" indicated an "ensemble" of salted things and the "cupedinari" were the pork-butchers, already associated into a "collegium". In the Middle Ages, an epoch of hunger and famine, preserved meats, pork especially, were fundamental food resources. However, the moment of glory for cold meats came with the Renaissance, when from being a food invented for survival they evolved into epicurean delicacies and became the chief attractions on banqueting tables. A work of the early 17th century, published in 1644, "L'economia del cittadino in villa" by Marchese Vincenzo Tanara, provides more than a hundred recipes for the preparation of pork and about sixty for various cold meats.
Once, the pig would be taken to the pork butcher's between the autumn, with the first cold weather, and the end of winter, because in this period its meat, toughened to the right point, could be more easily processed and better preserved.
Nowadays, man is assisted by technology and slaughtering takes place throughout the year. The industry, thanks to advanced techniques and air-conditioned storerooms, accelerates production times, though remaining as faithful as possible to tradition, and offers greater guarantees as regards hygiene and proper preservation.
The history of "prosciutto" (ham), on the other hand, is a most particular one. According to legend, ham originated in ancient Aquitaine, present-day Basque France. The words "presciutto" and "prosciutto" derive respectively from the vulgar Latin "perexuctus" (all liquid removed), and from a hybrid of "perexuctus" and "proexsucatus" (dried), and are documented from the 14th century. However, this precious meat had already been produced by the Greeks and Romans; the latter distinguished between ham made with the leg ("perna") and that made with the shoulder ("petaso"). It is mentioned by the Latin writers Varro, Columella and Palladius, whilst in the "De re rustica" by Marcus Porcius Cato, the first ham recipe appears: the technique described is the one still in use in various mountain areas in central and southern Italy. In the 14th century writers on agriculture mention it in terms of production techniques, but it is in the Renaissance that ham experiences its finest hour: cooked and used in a thousand ways it was the pièce de résistance at feasts and banquets. It was in this period that the guild of carvers was established and with it the art of slicing ham in the best and most elegant way.
Umbrian salami and cold meats
These are sausages processed according to an ancient tradition; the sausage mixture consists of one part pig's liver and three parts meat. There are two versions of it, sweet and savoury. After curing, the mixture is stuffed into a natural gut, which is divided into sections with fine string, as is common practice with sausages, puncturing them with needles to let air and blood out.
Mazzafegati are eaten both fresh and seasoned. In the latter case they are dried first for a few days in a hot and ventilated environment, then placed to season in cellars or in a humid cool environment where they can stay for as much as six-seven months. The colour is fairly dark; the taste is very rustic and intense, much appreciated by those who love strong-flavoured foods. The mazzafegato is a concentrate of nutritional elements, especially proteins, vitamins A and B, iron, and has a contained presence of fats.
It is one of the most famous typical salamis in Umbria, with a very fine mixture, consisting of three parts high-quality pork, very finely minced, and one part hard fat cut into dice, that form large cavities. The mixture – aromatised with salt, whole and crushed pepper and garlic steeped in wine – is stuffed into the soft gut. The corallina is left to rest for a few days in an airy environment heated with a wood-burning stove; it is often smoked by burning juniper berries. A seasoning period follows that varies from three to five months in a humid, cool environment.
Cold venison meats
The production of cold venison meats, typical of Umbria, is centred on the commune of Nocera Umbra, above Foligno and a few kilometres away from the Parco Naturale Regionale; in other words, in one of the areas where fallow deer are bred in Italy (there are reserves in Sardinia as well). It is from here that the raw material comes with which these specialities are made.
According to Bartolomeo Sacchi known as Platina – author in 1474 of "De Honesta voluptate et valetudine" (honest pleasure and health), a synthesis of gastronomic lore in the second half of the 15th century – the fallow deer, an "animal of the species of goats" and difficult to "domesticate", "has properties similar to those of the roe deer, its meat is a good nutrient".
Fiocco or filetto di daino (boned loin with the fat removed).
Bocconcino di daino (small sausages with a fine filling)
Cacciatorini di daino (seasoned sausages)
Prosciutto di daino (boned haunch).
It is a typical Umbrian sausage originating from the Valnerina; the mixture consists of best-quality lean pork, finely chopped and seasoned with salt and pepper. It is stuffed into a natural gut, at the centre of which a long strip of bacon is placed, just as it is in the mortadella of Campotosto, and pressed until it acquires the shape of a parallelepipedon. After a resting period of several days in a well-ventilated, warm environment, it is seasoned for four-five months in a cellar or in some other equally humid and cool room.
Budellacci (pig's entrails) of Norcia (or noia, or annoia)
It is produced throughout Umbria but, as the name suggests, its adopted area is Norcia, in the province of Perugia. It is made with the fatty entrails of pigs bred in the area, carefully mixed with water and vinegar, wine or lemon, then seasoned with salt, pepper and fennel seeds, and put to dry under the chimney cowl. After about three-four days, during which it dries to the correct point, it is ready to be eaten cooked.
Norcia and the Valnerina are the most famous and well-suited areas for the production of Umbrian ham, fundamental factors for whose production are the skill of local artisans and the particular climatic conditions of the territory.
The artisans of Norcia have disseminated the preparation of a particular type of ham known as "salted" or "mountain" ham, becoming its ambassadors in Italy; it is defined as "mountain" ham because, in addition to the customary salting and covering of pepper in the part not protected by the pork rind, this type of ham is left to mature slowly in the thin, dry mountain air.
There are two versions: the normal type, also known as "typical of Norcia", seasoned for one year and the "ancient" ham of Norcia, processed in a strictly artisan and natural way, seasoned for two years (because "a good ham must feel at least one winter and one summer") with results that place it at the top of the regional "Norcinesque" production. Several peculiarities make it unmistakable. To begin with there is its shape: "teardrop" or pear, obtained from the right-angled trimming of the leg, in other words from the U-shaped cut a hand's span from the "ball" (the joint of the thigh-bone), instead of just a few centimetres away as is the case with other hams. Then the processing technique is longer and more complex than that of other hams. After shaping and the elimination of the rind in the inner part, the leg is dry-seasoned with cooking salt, pepper and garlic and placed to rest for twenty-thirty days according to its weight. It is then washed with hot water and with wine and flavoured again with pepper and garlic, then hung up to dry and lightly smoked.
After about eight months of maturation the ham goes on to the "toelettatura" stage, which involves plastering it with a mixture of lard and flour and putting it to season "au naturel" in a humid and cool environment, without the use of air conditioning. This procedure, in which artificial acceleration methods are forbidden, does not allow the ham to be marketed until at least two years after the start of processing. Obviously the final result is an extraordinarily delicious and highly-prized product. The meat of the typical ham of Norcia is fairly firm, highly-flavoured and is a lovely bright red, tending to dark red, colour.
To enjoy it at its best and fully appreciate its fragrance, it should be cut with a knife according to ancient custom: with a machine it would lose its freshness and full flavour and would become stringy. The leg must be immobilised in a special ham vice and cut with a long, thin, very sharp knife to obtain the finest slices possible.
Ham is perhaps the Italian fast-food par excellence, lending itself to quick consumption without too much fuss. Ham and bread is one of the most winning combinations in the local gastronomy, but it can be used equally successfully in more elaborate preparations. It goes perfectly with melon and figs; it makes a delicious snack between two slices of homemade bread or inside cheese pizza cut in half.
Nutritional information on ham
Cold meats are one of the most demonised foods, even though in recent years nutritional science has re-evaluated them, disproving several erroneous commonplaces that tended to decry as bad anything with the slightest fatty appearance. Pork fat, from a nutritional point of view, contains less saturated fats than butter and has a good content of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Furthermore, pork meat and fat are low in cholesterol, 60, 70mg per 100 grams: like chicken. One hundred grams of ham corresponds to 150 kilocalories (with the visible fat removed obviously), like other types of lean meat, and is therefore recommended for the diet. Moreover, during seasoning, with the metamorphosis of the meat into ham, enzymatic and bacterial transformations take place, a phenomenon defined as "proteinic predigestion". Ham, therefore, besides being a delicacy, is also one of the foods recommended by doctors to aid digestion.
Originally published in http://www.umbriadoc.com/eng/prodottotipico/generale/ and not available anymore. This copy was saved by LC in June, 2004 and edited to be posted.
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