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So you’ve heard of culatello, eh? Of course you have. You either searched out a culatello article, or you accidentally stumbled across this and now it’s true whichever way it happened.
You’ve heard of culatello, you zeitgeist gourmand, you. If I was ranking charcuterie trends in the UK, and I mean proper stuff, not draping a halloween skeleton with prosciutto for insta or anything like that, culatello is up there. ‘Nduja has been being discovered for about a decade, the secret is out (even if none of us can pronounce it properly yet), but culatello is still a bit under the radar. Not for long, though. For a nation of Parma ham fiends, culatello is going to be a big draw, especially as it’s better suited to being made in the UK than its big bro prosciutto. So whether you’d heard it on the grapevine, or you heard it here first, you’re at the head of a tasty trend indeed.
But what is it? Where does it come from? How is it made? And how do I get some? These are questions we can handle herein.
Culatello, or when we’re being formal Culatello di Zibello DOP is a salumi in the Italian tradition. Salumi? Yes, and salu-you-too. Salumi being the Italian word for all the cured meats in the salumeria, a group salami belongs to, but not the other way around. Ham is salumi, and culatello is ham.
They make culatello in the province of Parma, which confuses matters, frankly. If it’s ham from Parma, is it not Parma Ham? Well, no, not really. Because the Parma Ham we’re talking about is Prosciutto di Parma DOP, and this culatello isn’t prosciutto, even if it is a ham also made near Parma.
DOP? Like a trademark for where things can be produced. Widely used in Italy to tag up all of the delicious stuff they make. Melton Mowbray Pork Pies have the same thing.
A timely question, and a simple answer. Prosciutto is a ham from the rear leg of pork, usually made as a whole leg (trotter on), with the bone left in. Looks like Serano, Iberico, and those other iconic things. Culatello looks more like a football. A group of muscles from the leg is cured individually, with the bone removed. Pigs, similar, product, similar, preparation, a little different. Being a bit smaller and boneless, culatello will taste a bit fresher and sweeter than prosciutto.
Take a whole leg of pork, remove the thigh bone, separate the larger group of muscles from the flatish individual muscle and trim off the smaller muscle by the knuckle. The neat, plump bunch of pork rump remaining will be the culatello. Traditionally it is cured and then stuffed into a sow’s bladder, then tied and dried. Culatello can be ready in as little as six months, but versions are aged much longer, for two or three years. These older specimens are pricier.
Specialist Italian importers and delis, normally. But for the out of the box thinkers and the charcuterie experiencers, what about this?
We’ve wanted to do this ever since we saw the Prince of Monaco’s name on a culatello hanging in the cellar under a mansion on Verdi’s estate. Niche image, eh? It was a photo. Maybe we’ll go and see it for real one day.
Anyway, we thought, wouldn’t you like your name tag on a ham of your very own, aging to your precise specifications? Want a six month aged ham? Or a three year one? The choice would be yours, and we would look after it for you until it was perfect.
So we did it, and launched Adopt an Air-Dried Ham. Your ham, our drying room, until it’s exactly how you want it. While it dries, keep tabs via HamCam (yes, we’re livestreaming meat drying), and why not visit your ham for a drink while you’re at it, you know, just to check it’s doing OK.
The hams we’re doing for you are based on a British horseshoe gammon, which is a cut extremely similar to culatello. We’re curing in the same traditional way, though we have dispensed with the sow’s bladder - not a good smell.
You can find out more about Adopt an Air-Dried Ham here.
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