Szegedi szalámi

Appearance & taste

The salami is long and round, of the same thickness along its whole length, narrower at the hanging end and rounded at the other. The slightly wrinkled casing is completely covered with white to greyish-white noble mould and adheres well to the filling. The sausage is dense, yielding and firm and slices well without being too hard. On the cut surface, evenly distributed brownish-red grains of meat and white grains of fat, 2 to 4 mm in size, can be seen.

It smells pleasantly of smoke and spices. The flavour is shaped by the spices, the smoke, the fermented meat and the aroma compounds formed during maturing, rounded off by the noble mould. It is sold as a whole, sealed stick in cellophane or in slices on cardboard trays, vacuum-packed or in a protective atmosphere. For export, the word “Salami” may be used instead of “szalámi”.

Production

The meat comes from pigs at least one year old and weighing at least 150 kg, born, kept and slaughtered in five counties of the Hungarian Great Plain and southern Hungary. They are fattened on grain (maize, wheat, barley), supplemented according to the season with lucerne, fodder pumpkin, fodder carrots or potatoes. Shoulder, hind leg, loin, hard belly fat and cheek are cut up exclusively by hand.

Meat and fat are dried off at 0 °C, frozen at –4 to –6 °C and then minced to 2 to 4 mm together with spices and curing salt. The mixture is filled under vacuum into casings at least 65 mm in diameter and smoked for 12 to 14 days over beech wood at no more than 12 °C. The sticks then mature for two to three months in fermentation and drying rooms, at 16 to 17 °C and over 86 % humidity so that the mould forms. No starter cultures are used for this. Because the salami has a high pH value, it may only dry slowly; production takes at least 90 days in total. Slicing and packing are permitted only in the production area.

Origin & history

Szeged lies on the Tisza in the southern Great Plain. Evaporation from the wide expanse of water raises the humidity; according to the specification, this is how the special “house mould flora” came about. It consists of more than ten mould species, mostly of the genus Penicillium, at least ten of which adhere to the finished salami, and it settles again on every new batch. Unlike mould starter cultures, it tolerates the smoked surface. The coating slows drying and protects against rancidity.

The pigs come from counties with many hours of sunshine, a long autumn and moderately cold winters, where cereals are grown and fattening pigs are traditionally kept on farmsteads and small farms. In 1869 Márk Pick founded a factory in Szeged; salami production became a separate line of business in 1883 and from 1885 was carried out on a large scale with Italian workers. According to the specification, the salami has been made in Szeged for more than 130 years with the same technology and composition.