Calabria's four PDO cured meats: rules, flavours and differences

Four PDOs, one whole region

According to Qualigeo the four designations were registered on 20 January 1998 and the production area is the whole of Calabria. The pig rules are shared: large traditional breeds such as the Calabrese, Large White and Italian Landrace; animals born in Calabria or in certain neighbouring Southern regions listed in the specification, raised in Calabria from four months of age at the latest, then slaughtered and processed in the region. The Protection Consortium, which also presents the products on the Sila National Park's pages, notes pig feed based mainly on barley, maize, chickpeas and acorns and the quality mark Suino allevato in Calabria. The Consortium was founded on 8 January 2007 and recognised by the Ministry on 15 March that year.

Sources: Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Capocollo di Calabria DOP · Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Salsiccia di Calabria DOP · Parco Nazionale della Sila (parks.it) — Prodotti locali: Salumi di Calabria DOP

Capocollo: a hundred days and a thin layer of fat

Capocollo di Calabria comes from the upper part of the loin, in boned pieces of 3.5 to 5.5 kilos, with a fat layer of about 3-4 millimetres that keeps it soft during ageing. Salting, dry or in brine with ground kitchen salt, lasts 4 to 10 days; then the meat is washed, massaged with wine vinegar, pressed, and whole black peppercorns are added. It is wrapped in pork casing, tied by hand with natural string, sometimes with traditional wooden sticks, and pricked. Ageing lasts at least 100 days from salting, at 14 to 16 degrees. The shape is cylindrical; when cut it is rosy red with veins of fat, with a delicate flavour that refines with time.

Sources: Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Capocollo di Calabria DOP

Soppressata: sweet, hot or white

Soppressata di Calabria is made from the lean parts of shoulder, leg and fillet, with 4 to 15% lard added per kilo of meat. Meat and lard are minced medium-coarse and mixed with salt, black pepper, wine and natural flavourings. The seasoning decides the type: hot red pepper or hot pepper paste for Piccante, sweet red pepper or sweet paste for Dolce, no pepper or chilli for Bianca. The mixture goes into pork casing, which is pricked; each piece is tied by hand with natural string. The shape is cylindrical and slightly flattened, 10-18 centimetres long and 4-8 in diameter. Natural ageing lasts at least 45 days. It keeps hanging somewhere cool for about a year, or under oil, under fat or vacuum-packed.

Sources: Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Soppressata di Calabria DOP

Salsiccia: chain-linked or U-shaped, with fennel

Salsiccia di Calabria uses shoulder meat, at least 50%, and rib meat, with lard from 6 to 20% per kilo of meat. The mixture is seasoned with salt, black pepper whole and ground, wine, fennel seeds and other natural flavourings; here too there is a Piccante version, with chilli or hot pepper paste, a Dolce, with sweet red pepper, and a Bianca. It is stuffed into natural pork casing, pricked and presented braided in a chain or tied in a U. Natural ageing lasts at least 30 days. Qualigeo notes that the Southern climate, with hot, dry winds such as the scirocco, allows gradual ageing even in summer, and that PDO salsiccia is on sale all year.

Sources: Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Salsiccia di Calabria DOP

Pancetta: the often forgotten fourth PDO

Beside the three better-known meats there is Pancetta di Calabria PDO, taken from the lower belly. Fresh pancetta with rind, of 3-4 kilos, is trimmed into a rectangle 3-5 centimetres thick and dry-salted for 4-11 days; then it is washed, moistened with wine vinegar, and the surface may be covered with chilli powder, the so-called impepatura. It ages at least 30 days in rooms with controlled humidity and temperature. It cannot be portioned or sliced outside the production area: if not sold whole, it must be cut in Calabria. When sliced it is pink with thin bands of lean and fat. It is eaten raw in thin slices or cooked, with local wood-fired bread, fresh broad beans, pulses and polenta.

Sources: Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Pancetta di Calabria DOP

From 1691 to the Murattian Statistics

Qualigeo's profiles of the four PDOs tell the same story. Cured meat making in Calabria probably dates back to the Greek colonisation of the Ionian coasts, but the first certain source is Della Calabria illustrata by Father Giovanni Fiore da Cropani, from 1691, which mentions suppressate among salted meats. The Statistics of the Kingdom of Naples from the Murattian period, in the early nineteenth century, record the preference for salted pork in both Calabrias. Qualigeo stresses that Calabria remains one of the few regions where pig-processing traditions are still deeply rooted. Cured meats were once kept hanging from the ceiling in cool, dry rooms, for up to a year.

Sources: Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Capocollo di Calabria DOP · Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Soppressata di Calabria DOP · Qualigeo (Fondazione Qualivita) — Pancetta di Calabria DOP

Not everything is PDO: 'nduja, smoked meats and black pig

Many famous Calabrian cured meats have no European designation. The national list of traditional food products, under Calabria, includes among others 'nduja, smoked soppressata, Decollatura soppressata, sausage with wild fennel called satizza, raw salame from Albidona, raw ham from San Lorenzo Bellizzi, and Calabrian black pig meat and ham. These are regional recognitions of a tradition, not specifications with a control body. The Calabrian black pig is also listed in Slow Food's Ark of Taste, in the province of Cosenza and the Sila National Park: a hardy breed suited to pasture and free-range or semi-free-range rearing, in sharp decline since the 1970s and at risk of extinction.

Sources: Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali 2022, allegato I (copia pubblicata dal progetto regionale Biodiversità Puglia) · Fondazione Slow Food, Arca del Gusto — Suino nero calabrese

Nothing of the pig is wasted: the Pollino tradition

The Pollino National Park, straddling Calabria and Basilicata, recalls a popular saying that tells a lot about the pig's role in the mountain economy: nothing of the pig is wasted. Soppressata, named after being pressed, has old roots throughout the Park's Calabrian and Lucanian territory, with a bright red colour and a firm texture.

Recipes change from one side to the other. According to the Park, on the Calabrian side soppressata is seasoned with salt, pepper and sweet or hot red pepper, on the Lucanian side with salt and black and white pepper. Sausage is made with choice meat, enriched with wild fennel seeds and powdered Senise pepper, stuffed into natural casing and eaten fresh or aged, with a slightly spicy, very fragrant taste.

The Park explains that it has supported local supply chains, pork included, with projects on quality and traceability and by linking producers with those who host visitors.

Sources: Parco nazionale del Pollino — Sapori

Where to taste them: from the Riviera dei Cedri to Cosenza

The Italia.it itinerary devoted to chilli pepper crosses the places where Calabrian cured meats are at home. It starts in Diamante, on the Riviera dei Cedri, where the guide recommends tasting the hot sauces and 'nduja, a chilli-flavoured spreadable salami used as a starter or to flavour pasta; eight kilometres away, in the ducal palace of Maierà, is the Chilli Pepper Museum.

The route then climbs into the Pollino Park to Castrovillari, with its Aragonese castle of 1490, passes through the Arbëreshë villages and reaches Cosenza, whose old town overlooks the meeting of the Crati and Busento rivers. Among the area's typical products Italia.it lists cured meats, starting with a 'fiery' soppressata, pecorino, ricotta and the Donnici, Pollino and Savuto DOC reds.

It is an itinerary that lets you set side by side, on the same trip, the four PDOs and the traditional cured meats without a designation, from the sea to the mountains.

Sources: Italia.it — Calabria, la terra del peperoncino

At the table and in the suitcase

To understand the differences I would put the four PDOs on one board, in this order: pancetta and capocollo, milder, then soppressata and salsiccia, asking for the sweet and hot version of each. Wood-fired country bread and a structured Calabrian red, as the profiles suggest, are enough.

At the counter I would always look for the full name of the designation and the PDO abbreviation: soppressata and salsiccia are words anyone can use, and only the PDO guarantees the pigs' origin and minimum ageing. Alongside the PDOs it is worth tasting a traditional cured meat without a designation, such as 'nduja, to see what sets the two families apart.

A whole soppressata or a chain of sausage travels well if kept out of plastic, somewhere cool; vacuum-packed slices should go into a fridge as soon as possible.