Читать книгу Made in Italy: Food and Stories - Giorgio Locatelli - Страница 67

Prosciutto crudo is famous all over the world and the word may be an amalgamation of two Latin verbs, one meaning to burn, the other to draw out or strip (as in drawing out the moisture of the meat). Of course the most well known is prosciutto di Parma (Parma ham), which – like Parmesan cheese, from the same region of Italy – has travelled the world. Just as you could roll your wheel of cheese on to a boat, you could pack your ham and a knife in your knapsack and go off on your travels.

Meat has been cured since ancient times, so why is Parma so important? Partly because there was an abundance of salt passing through the area from the trading port of Venezia as far back as Roman times, and partly because the dry, aromatic breezes that circulate through the Appeninos create the perfect environment for curing hams. Italian pigs, salt, air and time – those four ingredients, they say, give Parma ham its special sweetness (no sugar, spices, water, nitrites or smoking are allowed).

Prosciutto di Parma has become so synonymous with prosciutto crudo, I often think people don’t even know that there are many, many more styles of cured ham being made in regions around Italy. All the time at Locanda, we are being brought new ones to taste, from small producers reviving old methods, and I am always fascinated by the subtle differences that come not only from the various breeds of pigs that are used, but from the diet of the animals, and the environment and conditions in which the ham is cured and dried.

After the Second World War, when there was not enough food for everyone, many people went into intensive breeding of pigs, but now there is much more attention being paid to traditional breeds, and the way they are raised. Remember, we are talking about raw cured ham, so the quality of the meat is the most important thing. What you put in at the beginning, you get back at the end.

Parma’s fame has also brought it close to a disaster, because until the rules tightened to protect the product, who was going to say: ‘No, we can only produce 150,000 hams a year,’ when the demand around the world might be 150 million? It was easier to bring in pigs from outside the region – even from Poland and Romania – and have them slaughtered and cured in the locality, in order to get the Parma certification. Imagine vans of several hundred animals, banging around inside lorries, kicking each other as pigs do, and getting crushed. Of course, the first thing that would be damaged would be the legs (only the hind legs are cured to make Parma ham), so the flesh becomes soft. Why do you think prosciutto without the bone became so popular? Because, if the bone was taken out and the flesh squeezed together, it was a way of selling second quality meat, and still calling it Parma ham, so that a lorry load of pigs that left Spain worth £20,000 was now worth £40,000.

So gradually Parma ham has come under much stricter controls. Since

1970 it has been awarded a Protected Designation of Origin and production is controlled by the Consorzio del Prosciutto di Parma (CPP).

Now the law says that you must produce your ham from Italian pigs, either pure-breed or cross-breeds derived from Italian Large White, Landrance and Duroc animals, that must be born and raised in one of eleven specified regions of Central-Northern Italy. To be certified by the Instituto Parma Qualità (IPQ) the hind legs of the pig must also carry an indelible tattoo put on within 30 days of being born, which shows the date and place of birth, and the breeder’s code. The pigs are raised in huts, which increases their fat, and fed on a diet of grain and whey from the production of Parmesan cheese. The idea is similar to the ‘West Country cycle’ that used to be followed in Somerset, which you have to chant, like a nursery rhyme: ‘The cows eat the grass, then give the milk that makes the cheese, that gives the whey, that is fed to the pigs, who make the muck to grow the grass that the cows eat.’

When a pig is slaughtered (at a minimum of 9 months, and weighing at least 140 kilos), the code of the abattoir in which it is slaughtered will be fire-branded on to its skin. It will be kept in cold rooms to harden, then pressed and cleaned and trimmed of some of its fat to give the characteristic ‘chicken drumstick’ shape. Then, at the salting stage, it will have a metal seal attached to the ham that bears the initials (CPP) of the Consortium and the date that curing began. The salt master (maestro salatore) controls the salt levels, temperature and humidity, so that the flesh absorbs only enough salt to keep the meat tasting sweet. Next, the hams hang for 70 days in refrigerated rooms, before being washed and brushed to remove excess salt, and then hung for three months in well-ventilated rooms with large windows that are opened to let the famous aromatic breezes through. After this, they are greased with minced lard and salt, and then finished in dark, cellar-like rooms for at least a year, but sometimes up to 30 months.

At last, at the end of curing, the ham must meet certain taste and appearance requirements. Its colour can be from pale to deep rose, and the fat should be white or rosy, but not yellow. The flavour should be rich and sweet, and the texture velvety but slightly chewy. Only if it satisfies all these criteria is it awarded the five-pointed ducal crown of Parma, which is branded into the skin, together with the producer’s identification code. So, in theory, it should be traceable every step of the way – though the Consorzio continues to prosecute the makers of the hundreds of imitations it tracks down around the world.

In the region of the Po valley, near Parma, they also produce the famous culatello di Zibello, which is made from the fillet of the pig’s thigh. This is the pear-shaped ham that you see encased in mesh, which is aged for at least 11 months and owes its intense aroma and sweet flavour to the special climate around the river Po, with its humidity, fogs and hot summers.

Some people prefer San Daniele ham, which is made in the same fashion as Parma, but only in very small quantities in the Friuli region – where the microclimate is different, and the pigs roam free, feeding on acorns in the woods. Unlike Parma ham, in which the trotter of the pig is taken from the leg, on a San Daniele ham the trotter is left on and the meat tends to be lean, with a stronger flavour, as the pigs develop more muscle from their exercise.

Despite all the noise about Parma, my ultimate ham is prosciutto di Cinta Senese from Umbria. The Cinta Senese are a smallish breed of pig, dating back to the Middle Ages, that you sometimes see depicted in old paintings. They are very beautiful: dark brown with a white stripe or ‘belt’ (cinta); and are very agile because they were bred to live in the wild, and if they run at you, you have to move fast, because they really are quite scary. They are reared around Siena and, before the Fifties, most people would have kept one in the backyard, but when everyone began intensively producing bigger pigs to satisfy the lust for Parma ham, they almost became extinct. Now, because of the revival of interest, they have been saved. Because they are allowed to wander freely around the woods, picking up acorns or chestnuts, they produce lean, deep red hams, with a quite hard surround of fat, which I think give the perfect balance of long-lasting sweet-savoury flavour and aroma.