Our Grigio del Casentino® pig offers wonderful, savory, and tasty meat, with a perfect balance between lean and fat. The most interesting thing about this meat is that it’s all good, every bit of it.
In addition to meat cuts, we have fat, the “bonus” of our products. Then there are the bones, perfect for flavoring broths and brown stocks, and the rinds, perfect in a thousand ways. But there are also offal, an important part both in terms of quantity and taste.
Parts of the head, liver, tongue, spleen, and lungs: historically scraps, today innovative elements. Starting from these ingredients, we produce artisanal cured meats that are good in every sense, because they are flavorful, ethical, and sustainable.
Since the dawn of time, there have been noble parts of the pig – loin, leg, ribs just to name a few – and poor parts. The first ones are consumed fresh or cured, the latter are destined for cold cuts. But who said it still has to be like that?
When every farm had its own pigs, fine cuts were sold, while what was left over from processing was recovered into products that remained with the farmer.
A double recovery, in practice. The first because all cured meats actually originate from the need to preserve pork meat as long as possible. The second because, as we always say, everything but the oink, and even the less noble parts must be valued with wisdom and attention.
For a long time, eating offal was “for peasants”. Some of the best cold cuts were born because not even a gram of meat could be wasted, certainly not from gastronomic research. In fact some exceptional artisanal cured meats have emerged from the need.
Today we no longer need to use every single part of the pig. And yet, we do not want to give up these ancient and traditional preparations.
The first reason is respect for the animal. We cannot slaughter a pig, exploit only some parts, and throw away others. We use everything, because all meat is a gift, and everything can be transformed into excellence with the right processing.
We promote conscious and responsible meat consumption. We are the first to say that meat should be consumed in moderation and, above all, chosen with the utmost care. For us, meat is good not only when it is tasty and flavorful, but also when it comes from animals raised in an ethical and sustainable way.
However, be careful: do not think that our passion for scraps is due to a purely ethical question. Respect for the animal, for the time and resources spent to raise it, is the basis of our working method, but there is much more.
The fact is that the offal of our Grigio del Casentino® are truly amazing. They have a unique taste, and a sincere goodness that nourishes and tells much about a territory and its culture.
As we have seen in our insight into Casentino, our sambudello and our capaccia perfectly represent our idea of conscious consumption and, coincidentally, they are delicious.
Sambudello comes from “S’ha un budello?” (“Do we have a gut?”), the question the butcher asked to preserve trimmings and leftover offal. In this cold cut, we also find wild fennel, of which we use both the seeds and the flowers for a perfectly balanced aroma.
Here’s another protagonist of the poor butchers’ tradition in the area: black pepper was too expensive, wild fennel was found at the edges of fields. Farmers settled for the second choice, but ended up creating a mix of flavors like no other.
And what about the capaccia? Head, rinds, and fifth quarter roughly cut and combined together for a product as peculiar to the eye as unique to the taste. Orange and lemon soften the intense taste of this recovery product and amplify its goodness.
Many consumers think that the best cuts of pork are those found in the supermarket. Nothing more wrong. If we want to offer truly interesting, ethical, and sustainable artisanal cured meats, we must broaden our horizons. It is in the less noble parts and offal that the true genuine taste of the Casentino tradition lies. Anything but scraps!