Larderia Mafalda makes one product and makes it very effectively. “We’re the oldest lardo producer in Colonnata — since 1930,” says Carlo Danesi, director of manufacturing at Larderia Mafalda in Colonnata, Italy. “So we really feel that we’re actually good at this product.”
Lardo is a kind of salume made by curing strips of pig meat in salt, rosemary, and a mixture of 20 authorised spices. By legislation, the product should age for six months. No different salume is cured utilizing the identical strategies — specifically, the beating of enormous items of meat — as lardo from Colonnata. “If you happen to eat lardo, not the type from Colonnata, you’ll be able to really feel immediately that it’s not aged,” says Fabio Testi, a member of the larderia’s manufacturing employees.
Larderia Mafalda can age roughly 680 kilograms of larda in a single conca, a big, custom-made hermetic marble basin used solely for curing meat. Very similar to the strategies utilized by Larderia Mafalda, even the marble for the concas is particular to the area. The previous Roman colony is world-famous for its Carrara marble, a veinous white marble that’s 98 p.c calcium carbonate. Larderia Mafalda homes 22 Carrara marble basins in its important lab and 9 extra in a secondary house.
Producing lardo is an exhaustive course of. Lots of of kilos of the recent meat must be transported, cleaned, trimmed, weighed, overwhelmed, massaged, salted, seasoned, and thoroughly layered within the conca the place no oxygen is allowed to sneak in. As soon as the lardo has sufficiently aged, it’s rinsed, trimmed, packaged, labelled, and bought. It’s then utilized by households throughout the area in conventional recipes — such because the larded rabbit from Mafalda’s proprietor Maria Roberta Germani — which were handed down from era to era. Though the manufacturing of lardo is tough work, Danesi and Testi have nice want to do it and preserve the custom alive.
“This work has just one secret,” says Danesi. “Ardour.”
Watched the most recent episode of Distributors to be taught what makes Colonnata lardo such a timeless and particular product.