Dalmatinski pršut

Appearance & taste

The ham has no cracks, cuts, loose muscles or loose rind, and the rind is not heavily folded. When cut, the fat is white to pinkish white, the meat evenly red to light red. It smells of fermented, salted, dried and smoked pork with a mild smoky note, tastes slightly salty to salty and is soft. According to the specification, studies found phenols in all samples that were absent from other, unsmoked hams from southern Europe and that most probably give the ham its smoky aroma.

The finished ham contains 30 to 55 % water and 4.5 to 7.5 % salt and weighs at least 6.5 kg. Apart from sea salt, it contains no additives such as nitrite, nitrate, potassium sorbate, ascorbic or propionic acid. After ripening, each ham is branded with a mark made up of the uniform mark and the producer’s code. The name must be displayed more prominently on the packaging than any other information.

Production

The legs come from commercial meat breeds, crosses or breeding lines. Once trimmed they weigh at least 11 kg, and fat and rind together are at least 15 mm thick. The meat must be pinkish red, firm and not watery. The legs are chilled, but never frozen, and salted 24 to 96 hours after slaughter. Before that, the residual blood is pressed out, above all from the femoral artery, so that the ham does not spoil during drying.

How long it is salted and pressed depends mainly on the weight. The ham is then smoked with cold smoke from hornbeam, oak or beech wood; the amount of smoke and the duration depend on the weight and the weather. During drying and ripening, the producers control air supply, temperature and humidity so that the ham does not dry out too quickly and does not develop a dry rim. Salting, pressing, smoking, drying and ripening take place in Dalmatia.

Origin & history

Dalmatia is the longest and widest coastal strip of Croatia on the Adriatic. Islands, coast and the mountainous karst hinterland run roughly parallel from north-west to south-east. The climate is Mediterranean, with warm, dry summers and mild, wet winters. Typical is the bora, a dry, cold wind that blows on an average of 130 days a year, mainly in winter.

According to the specification, thanks to the sea salt and the climate, people here adopted early on the ancient Romans’ knowledge of preserving pork by salting and drying. Originally the ham was mainly salted and dried. When it rained, it was hung next to the hearth in old kitchens or in drying huts so that the smoke drove out the moisture; when the bora blew again, it was taken outdoors to dry. Later the producers also smoked it in dry weather, because smoked meat kept better. Today the smoke serves only the aroma.

In the late 1930s an innkeeper in Varaždin advertised a tasting of “genuine Dalmatinski pršut”. In the 1960s demand rose quickly, and production was organised in cooperatives. With tourism since the mid-1990s, the ham became a Dalmatian delicacy and an economically important traditional food of Croatia.