Lonzino

Lonzino is made from the loin: the long muscle running above the ribs along the pig's back, the same cut that yields pork chops and roast loin. It is boned, trimmed, dry-salted with pepper and aromatics, wrapped or cased, and hung for two to four months.

It is a lean product by any standard: four to eight per cent fat, against roughly twenty-five to thirty for coppa and around sixty for pancetta. There is no intramuscular fat to render during ageing and soften the salt, so any error in curing shows immediately. Italian butchers treat it as a test piece.

The finished shape is a long cylinder, six to nine centimetres across, weighing one to two kilos. The slice is uniform deep pink with, at most, a thin outer rim of fat left on deliberately.

The name shifts by region: lonzino in the Marche, lonza in Umbria, Lazio and Tuscany, capolonza in some districts. American charcuterie makers usually call it lonza.

One warning for anyone searching in Italian: lonzino di fico is a completely different food (a Marche sweet of dried figs, almonds and cooked grape must, shaped like a salami and wrapped in fig leaves). No pork involved.

Clean, dense and sweet, tasting more of pork than any other Italian cured meat precisely because nothing is in the way. There is no fat coating the palate, no smoke, no chilli, and the seasoning (pepper, garlic, sometimes fennel or juniper) sits at the edge rather than at the centre.

The texture is firm and slightly springy, close to bresaola but with a rounder, sweeter finish where bresaola runs mineral and beefy. A good slice bends without breaking.

Because it is lean, it dries on the plate. Slices cut and left out for twenty minutes turn leathery, so it should be cut to order and eaten at once.

The common flaw is a hard, darker ring around the edge of the slice: case hardening, from drying too fast. It tastes noticeably saltier and tougher than the centre, and it is the fastest way to judge a producer.

Slice it under a millimetre and serve immediately at room temperature. Lean cured meat dries out on the plate within twenty minutes, so cut only what will be eaten.

In the Marche it goes inside crescia sfogliata, the layered flatbread of Urbino cooked on a griddle and filled while hot. In Umbria the equivalent is torta al testo, a flatbread baked on a stone disc, split open and stuffed steaming. Warm bread is the standard partner because it compensates for what the meat lacks.

On a board, always give it a fatty neighbour: ciauscolo, lardo, a piece of capocollo. Alone it is impressive for four slices and monotonous by the eighth.

With fruit it genuinely works rather than being a tourist-menu gesture: figs, melon, ripe pears. Sweetness stands in for the missing fat.

It is not a cooking meat. With no fat to render it will not build a base for anything, and heat turns it stringy. The one exception worth trying is a slice laid over a hot bean or chickpea soup at the table, where the steam releases the aromatics without cooking the meat.

Lonzino is the leanest of the cured pork family and that governs everything about keeping it. A vacuum sealed whole piece holds two to three months in the fridge, to the date on the pack. Once opened, wrap it in butcher paper or a clean cloth, never cling film against the cut face, and work through it within two to three weeks. Cut only what goes on the plate: the exposed face is where it dries, and a slice left out for twenty minutes stiffens visibly.

With so little fat to slow it down, moisture leaves fast. The cut face hardens into a dry crust within days, the colour there deepens towards brick, and the slices go from silky to brittle, snapping instead of draping. Trimming a thin layer off the face before each session gets you back to the soft meat behind. The small fat rim oxidises separately and turns from white towards yellow with a flat smell. Freezing is possible for a whole vacuum sealed piece, three months or so, but it costs texture, and the sliced product does not survive it at all.

Lonzino is a whole cured pork loin, so a slice is almost entirely lean: an even deep rose to garnet colour, close grained, with little or no marbling and at most a thin white fat cap along one edge. That is the fastest way to separate it from coppa or capocollo, which come from the neck and show a mosaic of fat pockets running through the lean, and from prosciutto, which is the leg and arrives in a wide irregular slice. The piece is a smooth cylinder, firm and dense, giving slightly under a thumb.

The name moves around. Lonzino in the Marche and Umbria is lonza in Lazio, and American producers label the same cut lonza or simply cured pork loin, while the Spanish equivalent on the same shelf is lomo embuchado, usually rubbed with pimentón and quite different in flavour. Look for a natural casing, a surface rubbed with pepper, fennel or garlic, and a short ingredient list. Price is a fair guide, since a loin loses about a third of its weight in curing: $28 to $45 a pound in the US for artisanal versions.

In the US it is usually labelled lonza rather than lonzino, and American craft charcuterie makers produce excellent versions, often easier to find and fresher than Italian imports. Italian delis and online specialists carry both. Expect roughly 18 to 34 dollars per pound.

In the UK, Italian delicatessens and online grocers stock it at about 28 to 45 pounds per kilo. Availability is patchier than for prosciutto or salami, so it is often simplest to order a whole vacuum-packed piece.

Check the cut face before buying sliced. The colour should be even from rim to centre; a darker, drier ring around the edge means case hardening, and those slices will be tough and salty.

Be wary of anything cheap. Loin is an expensive cut even fresh, so a low price usually means a short cure and brine injection rather than dry salting. Look for a short ingredient list: pork, salt, pepper, aromatics, curing salts.

A one- to two-kilo whole piece is the practical size. It slices better than pre-packed trays, keeps three or four weeks once started, and costs substantially less per kilo.

The inland Marche: Sarnano, Amandola, Cingoli and the villages under the Sibillini mountains, where butchers still cure their own and the board arrives with hot crescia.

Fabriano and its hinterland have a serious butchery tradition, and lonzino is best tasted there beside salame di Fabriano, a lard-studded salami that is its exact opposite in richness.

In Umbria, Norcia is the reference. The old shops under the arcades of the main square display lonze, hams and salami by the dozen, and the Valnerina around it (Cascia, Preci, Scheggino) serves them with torta al testo and black truffle.

Late spring is the best season, when loins cured after the winter slaughter have finished ageing. In autumn, the truffle and chestnut festivals across the Apennine villages bring every producer in the district into one square.

Both regions are underbooked compared with Tuscany next door, which is the main practical argument for going.