Pork is often a staple meals with the mountain areas of online store northern Italy, the place it’s usually claimed that a effectively butchered pig really should go away ‘nothing though the oink’ powering. Like a pig is usually all over 30% Excess fat, thrifty locals had to think of a way to use and preserve this useful supply of protein, and The end result is Lardo.
Lardo di Colonnata, to offer it its entire title, is actually a delicacy generated from pork Unwanted fat in and round the Tuscan mountain city of Colonnata. Happily for fans of cured meat, it’s not merely a frugal way of preserving pork Unwanted fat around Wintertime – it’s tasty much too!
It’s produced in large vats generally known as conche, fashioned from marble quarried for the close by ‘white mountain’ of Cararra, that happen to be initially liberally rubbed with garlic. Future, layers of pork Unwanted fat, salt, and also a Specific mix of herbs and spices are extra until eventually the vats are whole. The conche are then sealed that has a wooden lid and remaining in awesome mountain caves for six months or longer to mature within the clean air.
After the maturation time is more than, the conche are opened to expose a silky-clean, meltingly tender ‘meat’ which may be eaten in Considerably exactly the same way as Parma Ham or other prosciutto.
Although Lardo is usually utilized to preserve roasted meats moist by putting a skinny layer in excess of the pores and skin, It is additionally delightful just sliced thinly and eaten with bread, olives, and a very good excess virgin olive oil as A part of an antipasto class. It really is in no way hard or greasy, and is particularly perfectly truly worth trying although the idea of having pure Excess fat leaves you somewhat apprehensive!
Regardless of the lengthy yrs of making Lardo in the normal way, most of the illustrations that you simply may well obtain in your local deli or retailer will likely have been created in a much more industrial placing, mostly due to contemporary hygiene legal guidelines having precedence around customs and heritage. Gone would be the marble conche as well as the mountain air, changed by stainless steel and air conditioning.
Nonetheless, website visitors to the world all-around Colonnata may still be Blessed and obtain keep of Lardo created inside the aged way that's been proven over the hundreds of years – just don’t inform the authorities if you do!