Making Salami in Winter

Italians eat with the seasons. That’s about the only way you can generalize Italian food, except maybe to say that their food is always fresh and simply prepared. Which is a direct result of eating what’s in season. What is seasonal generally is taken to mean local fresh fruit and vegetables, harvesting what’s growing in the gardens and ripening on the trees and bushes. But in the past, the winter season was pig-slaughter and salami-making time, fresh roasted meat was only available during the cold months, and eating with the season was more than just vegetables and fruit.

December, January and February was traditionally the time of year when Italians butchered their pigs to make salami, prosciutto, sausages, and other cured products because only then was it cold enough outside and in the slaughter house to butcher the meat safely, ensuring that it wouldn’t spoil or rot before they could get it cured. While today the butchering and curing goes on inside climate-controlled environments all year long, you do still find small operations and individual households that stick to the tradition of only butchering and curing meats in the wintertime. And if you only butchered animals in cold weather, that usually meant that for the mostly poor and agriculturally based population, fresh roasted meats were a wintertime delicacy.

I have several friends in Italy who always buy a pig in September and spend the winter fattening it up with table scraps and corn. Then after the first of the year, they schedule a weekend of sausage and salami making. The pig is killed on Thursday night, they pick it up on Friday and three days of cutting, seasoning and hanging meat begins, culminating with a big Sunday lunch of fresh grilled ribs and roasted pork loin. Friends pitch in and bring desserts and antipasti or fresh tagliatelle. A big fire is started early and by the time lunch comes it's burned down to a nice bed of coals for grilling pig liver wrapped in caul fat, pork steaks and ribs.