Prosciutto di Norcia IGP

Prosciutto di Norcia is a dry-cured pork leg made in five mountain towns of south-eastern Umbria and protected as an IGP since 1997. It comes from Italian heavy pigs, is salted twice with sea salt and aged a minimum of twelve months, and must weigh at least 8.5 kilos when the ageing is finished.

Two features identify it on sight. The first is the trim: the leg is cut into a short, rounded pear shape rather than the long profile of Emilian hams, which exposes more muscle and speeds up the drying. The second is the pepper. Around the sixth month the exposed meat is coated with a paste of lard, salt and coarsely ground black pepper, and Umbrian producers use far more pepper than anyone else, so the finished ham reaches the counter with a dark, gritty crust no other major Italian prosciutto has.

Production is small. Where Parma turns out millions of hams a year, Norcia counts in the hundreds of thousands, and much of it never leaves central Italy. The fire brand on the rind is the only real guarantee: a ham made in Norcia is not automatically a Prosciutto di Norcia IGP.

Savoury and firm where Parma is sweet and yielding. The salt registers first, then a nutty, almost roasted depth, then the pepper from the rind edging in on the finish. Twenty-four-month pieces develop a mushroom and dried-fruit note that is closer to a good Spanish serrano than to anything from Emilia.

Texture is the other difference. Mountain air with wide day-night temperature swings dries the meat faster and more evenly, so the fibre is tighter and the slice has more bite. It does not dissolve on the tongue in the way a young Parma does; it stays present and chews.

The fat is white, firm and clean-tasting, and it carries most of the aroma, which is why the ham needs fifteen minutes out of the fridge before serving. Eaten cold it tastes flat and salty; at room temperature it opens up considerably.

Slice it thin but not transparent. Norcia has a tighter fibre than Parma and a slice with a little body eats better than a gossamer one. Have it cut to order, and give it fifteen minutes out of the fridge before eating so the fat can release its aroma.

The traditional partner is Umbrian bread, which is made without salt. That is not a quirk: it is the reason the pairing works, because the ham brings all the salt the mouthful needs. Serve it with salted focaccia or a heavily seasoned sourdough and the balance collapses.

Melon and figs are less successful here than with Parma: the high salt and the sweet fruit fight rather than fuse. It does much better against neutral fat (butter, stracciatella, fresh sheep's ricotta) or against bitterness, like chicory crostini or a puntarelle salad.

Keep whole slices out of the pan. Twelve months of work disappears in twenty seconds of heat. The end piece near the bone, the gambuccio, is a different matter: dice it into lentil or farro soups, and simmer the bone itself for stock.

A vacuum pack, whole boneless piece or sliced, carries a date printed by the producer and keeps at 0 to 7 C until then; that date is the reference. A bone-in leg on a stand belongs in a dry room at 15 to 18 C rather than a fridge, and once it is opened the cut face is what needs attention: cover it with the fat and rind you trimmed off, or with a cloth, because bare muscle dries and darkens within a day and a hard rim forms that has to be pared away before the next slicing.

The changes over months are slow and visible. The fat moves from white toward ivory and then yellow as it oxidises and the smell turns nuttier; the lean tightens and small white tyrosine crystals appear in older legs; the salt tastes stronger as water leaves. Sliced ham is the fastest to change, going matte and brick-dark at the edges within an hour of the pack opening, so keep slices layered between paper in the fridge. Freezing makes the fat grainy and is not how it is normally kept.

A whole Norcia leg is pear-shaped, heavy, with the trotter removed, and the exposed muscle face is sealed with a dark paste of lard and cracked pepper rather than left bare. Fire-branded into the rind is the IGP mark with the Norcia name. The mountain cure runs longer and drier than the ones on the plain, and it shows in the slice: the lean is a deep brick red rather than pink, the fat is firm and clean white, the aroma is more savoury than sweet, and the salt is more forward. Twelve months is the minimum, and many are older.

The two Italian hams it sits beside look different once you know where to look. Parma DOP keeps the trotter and carries a five-pointed ducal crown; San Daniele DOP also keeps the trotter and is pressed noticeably flat. Prosciutto sold plain in an American deli is usually domestic and milder. Spanish serrano and jamon come from other breeds and cures. Imported IGP is sold by the hundred grams from a slicer and costs several times the price of a domestic ham.

In the US, Italian importers and better delis carry it, though far less widely than Parma. Check for the fire brand rather than the word 'Norcia' on the label. Prices run 22 to 34 dollars per pound. In the UK, Italian delicatessens and online specialists list it at 32 to 48 pounds per kilo.

Buying whole is only worth it if you can hang it properly: a bone-in leg weighs 8.5 to 11 kilos and needs a cool, dark, ventilated space between twelve and eighteen degrees. Boned and vacuum-packed costs about twenty per cent more per kilo but is far more practical.

Whatever you do, buy it sliced to order rather than in pre-packed trays. Sliced prosciutto oxidises within hours: the fat picks up a rancid note and the edges dry. A hundred grams cut fresh beats half a kilo cut last Tuesday.

Norcia itself, a walled town at 600 metres on the edge of the Sibillini mountains. Its norcinerie are the reason the town is known: 'norcino' became the Italian word for pork butcher because butchers from this valley travelled to Rome and across central Italy to work pigs in people's homes. The 2016 earthquake destroyed much of the centre, including the Basilica of San Benedetto, but most of the producers have rebuilt.

The last weekend of February and the first of March bring the black truffle fair, which is the best few days of the year to be there: the same valley produces the prized black truffle, and the two are sold side by side.

Beyond Norcia, the Valnerina villages of Preci, Cascia, Monteleone di Spoleto and Poggiodomo, and the road climbing to Castelluccio at 1,300 metres, where the wildflower bloom across the Piano Grande between late June and mid-July draws photographers from across Europe. Castelluccio lentils and Norcia ham come from the same few kilometres.