APULICA / MEATS AND CURED MEATS
L'Aquila liver sausage
Slow Food Presidium · Meats and cured meats · Abruzzo
In brief
- A sausage from the province of L'Aquila, also called cicolana, made with pig's liver, heart and tongue plus some lean meat and fat. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Salsiccia di fegato aquilana)
- There are two kinds: one with pepper, chilli and garlic, and a sweet one with honey, eaten at breakfast on Easter morning. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Salsiccia di fegato aquilana)
- It is tied into a horseshoe and dried for about a month in a cool place. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Salsiccia di fegato aquilana)
- Liver sausage is on Abruzzo's list of traditional products. (Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026))
History and origin
In the inner mountains of Abruzzo, raising pigs in the woods has always been a precious resource. Slaughter took place between December and January, when the cold helped the meat to hang and keep, and nothing of the animal was wasted.
Liver sausage, locally also called «cicolana», is a historic cured meat of the province of L'Aquila and springs from exactly this know-how: a way to make offal and humbler cuts tasty through careful spicing. The spice proportions and the tying technique are handed down in families, from father to son, and each pork butcher guards them closely.
Today production is down to a few artisans, and it was at risk of disappearing as tastes changed. The Slow Food Foundation made it a Presidium, and in 2015 a producers' association was formed, supported by the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park. It is on Abruzzo's list of traditional products.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Salsiccia di fegato aquilana · Parco Nazionale del Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga — Associazione Produttori Salsiccia di Fegato Aquilana · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)
Area and method of production
It is made from pig's liver, heart and tongue, with a little lean meat and fat added, always pork. The sausages are made from November to April, in the cold months.
Tradition knows two kinds. The classic one is seasoned with pepper, chilli and garlic; the sweet one with very little pepper and with honey, which softens its flavour.
The mix goes into natural casing and is tied by hand: with a skilful twist in the middle, the sausage takes its typical horseshoe shape. It then spends about a week somewhere warm, near a stove or fireplace, and is finally hung from a pole for around thirty days to dry in a cool room without air conditioning.
The Presidium's rules exclude preservatives and additives, require a local supply chain and aim, where possible, to bring back the raising of the black Abruzzo pig, now nearly extinct.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Salsiccia di fegato aquilana
How to recognise it
It is recognisable by its horseshoe shape, the result of the twist in the middle, and by the hand-tied natural casing. The sausages are available in the months between winter and spring, after their month of drying somewhere cool.
The two versions have different characters: the spicy one, with pepper, chilli and garlic, has a bold taste in which the spices balance the strong flavour of the offal; the sweet one, with honey, is softer and rounder.
It is this skilful spicing, the fruit of family recipes, that makes even the humbler parts of the pig appetising: the signature of every pork butcher in the area.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Salsiccia di fegato aquilana
In the kitchen
The sweet version has a special place in Easter in L'Aquila: in local homes it is traditionally eaten on Easter morning, at breakfast, together with Easter pizza, a semi-sweet loaf and hard-boiled eggs. It is a festive breakfast that brings together the taste of honey sausage with the breads and cakes of the season.
The spicy and the sweet sausage come from the same cuts and the same season: only the spices change, a sign of how mountain cooking could draw very different flavours from the same pig.
Those tasting it for the first time discover an old way of treating pork, in which offal becomes a prized product through spices and patient drying.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Salsiccia di fegato aquilana
Where to taste it
The Presidium area covers the municipalities of the Gran Sasso on the L'Aquila side, the Monti della Laga in the province of L'Aquila and the middle and upper Aterno valley. It is a mountain landscape of woods and pastures, where the pork-butchering tradition has kept several fine products alive.
A trip through L'Aquila, Gran Sasso villages such as Santo Stefano di Sessanio and the villages of the Laga crosses exactly this land. The right time to look for it is between November and April, when the butchers make it, and the most heartfelt moment is Easter.
The Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park lists the producers' association among the members of its basket of typical products, alongside cheeses, pulses and other mountain cured meats.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Salsiccia di fegato aquilana · Parco Nazionale del Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga — Associazione Produttori Salsiccia di Fegato Aquilana · Parco Nazionale del Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga — I prodotti del Parco
Protection
- Slow Food Presidium — salsiccia-di-fegato-aquilana (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Salsiccia di fegato aquilana)
When
- Production: January–April, November–December (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Salsiccia di fegato aquilana)
- Winter
- Spring
- Autumn