Prosciutto

• 1. Introduction

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  Prosciutto is checked for quality with a needle made of horse bone. Inspectors push it into different parts of a cured ham, because bone quickly picks up the fragrances of the meat. That small test comes at the end of a process lasting anywhere from nine months to three years. Prosciutto is an Italian ham that is salted and dried rather than cooked, and it is usually served in thin slices. This documentary asks where the word comes from, and why one word can name two very different foods. It asks how the land of Friuli-Venezia Giulia shaped the craft, and what happens to a leg of pork over those long months. It asks why names like Parma and San Daniele are guarded by law. It also meets the cousins of prosciutto, made in Italy and in the countries to its east.

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• 2. A Word Meaning Dry

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  The Italian word asciutto means dry, and it may be the parent of prosciutto, with one prefix swapped for another. A second explanation reaches back to Vulgar Latin. There, pro, meaning before, joined exsuctus, a form of the verb exsugere, which means to suck out the moisture. Portuguese presunto has the same roots. So does the modern Italian verb prosciugare, which means to dry something thoroughly.

  In Italy, a shopkeeper who hears the word prosciutto may think of any ham at all. The raw, dry-cured kind is prosciutto crudo, or simply crudo. The cooked kind is prosciutto cotto. In English-speaking countries, the word usually points to Italian prosciutto crudo or to similar hams made elsewhere.

  The word itself has no legal protection. Cooked ham may be sold as prosciutto, and in English-speaking regions it is, usually as prosciutto cotto from Italy or made in the Italian style. A label alone therefore does not tell a shopper which food is inside. For the origins of the dried version, the trail leads to Friuli-Venezia Giulia, long before the word existed.

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• 3. Roots Before Rome

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  Archaeologists have found evidence of pig farming in Friuli-Venezia Giulia dating between the 11th and 8th centuries BC. Around 600 BC, Celts settled the area. They changed how the land and water were used, and they bred pigs for their meat.

  Contact with the Roman Empire, which began in 221 BC, made the practice more organised. Pork was a favourite in the Roman diet, so demand gave the local herds a purpose. The Romans also noticed something about the place itself. Low humidity, steady ventilation and the climate of the hilly piedmont let meat keep better than it did elsewhere.

  That observation marks the origin of a curing method built on the region's microclimate. Today the same region is home to one of the two hams most prized in Italy, San Daniele.

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• 4. Salt And Time

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  Prosciutto is made from the hind leg or thigh of a pig or a wild boar, and the plain word refers to that product. Other animals can supply the leg, but then the animal joins the name. Prosciutto di agnello, for example, is lamb ham. The time needed depends on the size of the ham.

  Bill Buford, a writer on Italian food, quotes an old Italian butcher on the craft. The butcher recalls, "When I was young, there was one kind of prosciutto." He describes the smell of a good one as "A profound perfume." Of the aging itself he says, "It needs to be damp but cool." Too warm, and the aging never begins. Too dry, and the meat is ruined. Summer is too hot, so the work belongs to winter.

  The Consortium of Prosciutto di Parma lists only three ingredients for its DOP ham: sea salt, lard and the hind leg of a pig. A salt master begins by covering each leg in damp sea salt, with dry salt on the larger muscular part. The leg then rests in refrigeration between 1°C and 4°C, at about 80% humidity, for a week. A second layer of salt follows and stays on for two more weeks.

  Next the ham hangs for two to three months in refrigerated, humidity-controlled rooms, and the leftover salt is washed off. About three months in cellars follow, while the outside dries. Producers correct that drying with a coating of minced lard and salt. Finally the hams hang in climate-controlled rooms or cellars for at least 14 months, and up to three years. Only hams that pass inspection are branded with the Ducal Crown symbol.

  Outside the protected hams, curers sometimes add sodium nitrite or potassium nitrate. Other hams use them for a rosy colour and a distinct flavour. The colour comes from nitric oxide reacting directly with myoglobin to form nitrosomyoglobin, and drying then concentrates the pigment. Bacteria convert the added nitrite or nitrate into that nitric oxide. Protected designation of origin hams are cured with sea salt alone, a rule written into European regulation.

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• 5. Protected Names

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  Prosciutto di Parma comes from Emilia-Romagna and carries a slightly nutty flavour, which comes from Parmesan whey sometimes added to the pigs' diet. Prosciutto di San Daniele, from the San Daniele del Friuli area, is darker and sweeter. Both hold protected status, and both are the two most prized types in Italy.

  Under the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, certain well-established meat products are covered by a protected designation of origin, known as PDO. Looser designations of geographical origin exist for traditional specialties. The specifications behind these names do not generally require ham from free range pigs.

  The list of Italian varieties is long, and each differs a little in colour, flavour and texture. Prosciutto di Modena, Prosciutto toscano, Prosciutto di Carpegna and Prosciutto crudo di Cuneo are PDO hams. So are Valle d'Aosta Jambon de Bosses, Prosciutto di suino nero dei Nebrodi from Sicily, and Cinta Senese from Tuscany. Prosciutto amatriciano, Prosciutto di Norcia and Prosciutto di Sauris hold the PGI, the protected geographical indication. Hams from Campania, Apulia, Abruzzo and Lazio also appear on the list, among them Prosciutto di Faeto and Prosciutto della Majella.

  Not every dried ham from the Alps is prosciutto. Speck Alto Adige, from the South Tyrol region, is smoked, while prosciutto is not. Southern Switzerland also has its own tradition of making prosciutto. Across the border to the east, a family of related hams goes by a different name.

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• 6. Cousins Across Borders

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  Culatello con cotenna looks like prosciutto but is made from the filet or loin of the hind leg. It ages inside a cow or pig's bladder, which acts as a casing against spoilage and contamination. Culatello di Zibello holds PDO status, and the ham is commonly served as an antipasto. From the leftover cuts of culatello, makers prepare a salami called strolghino.

  In Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia, prosciutto goes by the name pršut. Slovenia produces it especially on the Karst Plateau and in the Vipava Valley. In Croatia, the main areas are Dalmatia, the island of Krk and Istria. Smoking divides the family. Pršut from Dalmatia and Herzegovina is smoked, unlike the Italian product, while pršut from Slovenia, Istria and Krk is not. The mountain village of Njeguši, in Montenegro, makes the smoked njeguški pršut.

  Five pršut types have protected status in the European Union and the UK. Kraški pršut, from the Slovenian part of the Kras, received its PGI in 2012. Drniški pršut from Šibenik-Knin County, Krčki pršut from Krk and Istarski or Istrski pršut from Istria all registered in 2015. Dalmatinski pršut followed in 2016. Istarski pršut is the only one of the five that holds the stricter PDO, and it is shared by Croatia and Slovenia.

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