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# 81 JULY 18 , 2016
# 81 juLY 18 , 2016
read more about #Italian Flavors
ITALIAN FLAVORS:
Tuscany Prosciutto
By Consorzio del Prosciutto Toscano with MiPAAF
nuine festival.
In around the 15th century,
at the time of the Medici,
the production of Tuscan
Prosciutto became regulated, with restrictions on
pig farming (to be carried
out on established sites,
arranged by the Grascia
officers), slaughtering, and
the production and sale of
dried meat, for which authorisation was required,
under pain of penalty.
There were also “licenses”
for exporting the product,
which could be sold or
exchanged.
Tuscan pig farming, once
based on the rearing of
piglets for fattening elsewhere, converted to a
closed cycle system due
to the great demand created by the growing number of processing centres
in the region.
The art of preserving pork
was firmly established in
the Tuscany region by the
Middle Ages. This can be
seen from the number of
laws governing the slau-
ghter of pigs and the preservation of pork already in place at the time of
Charlemagne. Prosciutto
Toscano comes from an
old tradition of Tuscan
farmers, who would slaughter a pig fattened for a
year during the winter, to
make sausages for family
consumption. This procedure developed into a ge-
A shift therefore occurred
from strictly family-based
production to larger farms and artisanal and small
industrial processing centres, which followed the
time-honoured methods
and preserved the particular characteristics of the
product.
The farms were distributed almost throughout the
entire region, but with a higher concentration in the
major grain production
areas, such as Val di Chiana, Casentino, Mugello,
the upper and lower Arno
Valley, Chianti, Val d’Elsa,
Val d’Era, Val d’Orcia and
Maremma, and as a consequence, the processing
centres also developed in
these areas.
In order to preserve this
cultural and culinary heritage, the producers
established
production
rules. The Tuscan Prosciutto Consortium was established for this purpose in
1990, and now includes
23 companies from the
region. The product was
then granted Protected
Designation of Origin
(PDO) recognition by the
European Union.
The current production of
Prosciutto Toscano PDO
is approximately 350,000
hams/year, ranking third
nationally in terms of
quantity.
throughout the area, all cut
from the same cloth, but
each with its own special
formula and recipe. The
mixtures of herbs used
during salting are jealously handed down from father to son, and the times
of the various phases are a
carefully preserved heritage for producing Prosciutto Toscano PDO.
Tradition, quality raw materials, monitoring of the
entire production process
and a consortium that
promotes and protects
the designation are some
of the factors that ensure
high standards of quality.
The result is a unique product with an unmistakable
taste that captures the essence of the rich, fertile
land of Tuscany.
The product
Prosciutto Toscano PDO The Prosciutto Toscano
involves 23 associated PDO production process
companies
distributed begins with the selection
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