Lucanica di Picerno

Appearance & taste

The sausage has a characteristic curved U shape. It weighs 250 to 350 g, is 3.0 to 3.6 cm thick and 20 to 35 cm long. The Lucanica for slicing weighs up to 1.2 kg and is 40 to 70 cm long. The slices are soft, dense and ruby red, with a share of fat.

Wild fennel dominates the aroma, with the smell and aftertaste of fennel seeds. Added to this, more faintly, are a spicy pepper aroma and an aroma of chilli flakes or seeds. In the spicy variant the chilli is more noticeable, but here too the fennel predominates. The fat content is 18 to 35 %.

The sausage is sold whole, in pieces or in slices, unpacked, vacuum-packed or in a protective atmosphere. The label bears the PGI logo and the EU symbol.

Production

The meat comes from heavy pigs with carcasses of 110.1 to 180 kg that are at least nine months old. Excluded are, among others, purebred animals of the Landrace Belga, Hampshire, Pietrain, Duroc and Spotted Poland breeds, as well as carriers of the gene for stress susceptibility. Only boned shoulder, neck, underside, belly, fillet tip and ham are used.

The meat is cleaned, that is, freed of nerves, connective tissue and soft fat, divided into small pieces and minced. It is seasoned with 2 to 2.5 % salt, wild fennel seeds, mild or hot chilli and black pepper; a little dextrose and sucrose, nitrite, nitrate, ascorbic acid and starter cultures are also permitted. Milk and milk products are excluded. The mixture rests for 4 to 24 hours so that the ingredients combine well, and is then filled into natural casing and bent into the U shape. For ripening, the sausage traditionally hangs on special carts, which also gives it the U shape. All steps from removing the fatty tissue to ripening take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area covers Picerno, Tito, Satriano di Lucania, Savoia di Lucania, Vietri di Potenza, Sant’Angelo Le Fratte, Brienza, Balvano, Ruoti, Baragiano, Bella, Muro Lucano, Castelgrande and Sasso di Castalda. The climate of the Lucanian Apennines, with hot, dry summers, rainy spring and autumn seasons and often snowy winters, lets the fennel grow abundantly.

The farmhouse recipe from Picerno called for a hundred fennel seeds per kilogram of mixture. Picerno used to have its own market for wild fennel; older people gathered and sold the seeds of the perennial plant. Today the fennel mostly, but not necessarily, comes from the area. Knowledge of the individual work steps has been passed down through generations, and according to the specification many local producers continue to work according to the craft methods of their ancestors.