Cinta Senese

Appearance & taste

The name applies to all edible cuts of the carcass. The meat is bright pink to red, fine-textured and compact, lightly marbled with fat and tender, with the aroma of fresh meat. 24 hours after slaughter it contains at most 78 % water and at least 2.5 % fat. According to the specification, the fat content, rather low for pork, shapes the taste. Among the unsaturated fatty acids, oleic acid, a precursor of various aroma compounds, predominates. The meat holds its water well and therefore loses less water during cooking.

The ham, loin, belly, shoulder and cheek of the half carcasses carry a brand with the logo and the code of the slaughterhouse. The logo shows, in a coat of arms with a dark red border, a dark grey pig with a white band around its body, surrounded by the words “allevata in Toscana secondo tradizione” (traditionally reared in Tuscany). Each cut for the final consumer also carries a code through which the animal can be traced.

Production

The meat comes from pigs of the Cinta Senese breed whose parents are entered in the herd register or in the herd book of the breed. The animals are kept wild or semi-wild and driven into the woods and onto suitable land to graze; at night and before and after farrowing they find shelter in sheds or in the sty. Their feed comes from wood pasture and fallow land in the area on which forage herbs and cereals have been sown.

For pigs over four months, the daily supplementary feed may be at most 2 % of live weight, and at most 3 % during long droughts, persistent rain or continuous snow cover. At least 60 % of this supplementary feed comes from the area. Cereals, oil plants other than soya, legumes, green fodder, fruit and vegetables, and vitamins and minerals are permitted. The animals are born, reared and slaughtered in the area.

Origin & history

The area is the whole region of Tuscany up to 1,200 m altitude; above that, the conditions are not suitable for keeping these animals. It is characterised by mixed woodland with many oaks and a rich acorn crop, and by poor, mostly clayey land that is hardly suitable as arable land and is used for pasture forage.

According to the specification, the farmers of the region bred the breed over the centuries: an undemanding, robust pig with strong limbs that can live almost entirely on the natural resources of Tuscany. Even today the animals are mostly kept wild or semi-wild as in the past. The meat is regarded as a typical example of the food traditions of Tuscany; many restaurants have cuts of Cinta Senese on their menus.