Salame Piacentino

Appearance & taste

The salami is cylindrical. When cut, the lean meat is a deep red, interspersed with rosy white, lentil-sized pieces of fat. According to the specification, the taste is unmistakable, very intense and rather mild, with the typical aroma of a cured meat; it develops in the course of ripening.

Slicing, portioning and packaging take place only in the production area. According to the specification, without the protective pork casing the cut surface and slices turn brown on contact with air, the lean meat loses its red colour and the fat goes rancid. The label shows the name set clearly apart, followed by “Denominazione di Origine Protetta” or “DOP” and the EU logo.

Production

The meat comes from heavy pigs born, raised, slaughtered and cut up in Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy. They are descendants of the Large White Italiana, Landrace Italiana and Duroc Italiana breeds or of crosses bred with these breeds for the production of heavy pigs. At slaughter the animals are at least nine months old, and their carcasses weigh 110.1 to 180 kg. Meat from boars and sows is excluded. At least half of the dry matter the pigs eat in a year comes from the rearing area. Cereals make up at least 45 % of the ration in the first fattening stage and at least 55 % in the final fattening stage; whey, cheese curd and buttermilk come mostly from cheese dairies in the area.

Various carefully selected and trimmed cuts of meat are used for the sausage: lean meat with a fat content of 10 to 30 %, mixed with spices. The meat is salted and minced, and the sausage mixture is kneaded, stuffed into pork casing and ripened. All these steps take place in the province of Piacenza.

Origin & history

According to the specification, production goes back to Roman times and has become concentrated in the province of Piacenza over time. It is part of a rural culture of the entire Po plain in which pig farming is closely linked with cereal growing and cheesemaking. The producers in Piacenza have developed and passed on their own knowledge of selecting the cuts of meat and processing lean and fatty meat. The specification justifies the altitude limit of 900 m by the particular climatic conditions. According to the specification, the province’s cool valleys rich in water and its wooded hills favour the conditions in the ripening rooms.