Salame Felino

Salame Felino is a pure pork salami, ground to a medium-coarse grain, seasoned with salt, whole and cracked black pepper, a very small amount of garlic and dry white wine, stuffed into natural pork casing and aged for at least twenty-five days.

It is cylindrical, thicker at one end than the other, and slightly curved. The curve is not a flaw: it is what happens when you use the intestine as it comes rather than forcing it straight. Weights run from just under half a kilo to a kilo and a half.

What sets Felino apart from other Italian salami is what is left out. No chilli, no fennel, no spice cabinet, barely any garlic, no smoke, no milk powder or milk derivatives. The white wine binds the mix and lifts it; it is not there to perfume it.

The EU granted PGI status in 2013 after a long fight, because "salame tipo Felino" had drifted into use as a generic name. The rules now tie production, not pig rearing, to the province of Parma.

Mild, sweet and clean, closer to good roast pork than to the garlicky, fermented salami most people picture. Pepper is the only seasoning you actually taste, in flashes from the whole grains, and the garlic registers as background rather than flavour.

The texture does much of the work. The coarse grain means the lean and the fat stay separate on the tongue, and where the fat has been cut by knife rather than ground, it melts in irregular pockets instead of evenly.

Compared with Milano salami it is looser, sweeter and less salty; compared with a Napoli it has none of the chilli heat or the smoke. Against Spanish chorizo it is a different food entirely, with no paprika at all.

It should never be sour. A tang at the finish means fast fermentation, which is a mark of industrial production rather than of the real thing.

Cut it on the diagonal, with the blade at roughly sixty degrees to the axis of the salami. This is the local convention and there is a reason for it: at the same thickness, an angled cut gives a wider, thinner slice with more surface area, which suits the coarse grain.

Slice it two to three millimetres thick. Shaved paper-thin on a machine, a coarse-grained salami falls apart.

Serve at room temperature with torta fritta (the puffed squares of fried dough that Parma serves with all its cured meats) or with plain white bread. A local habit worth copying: sweet butter spread on the bread under the slice.

Pickles work: giardiniera, mushrooms in oil, small pickled onions. Aged Parmigiano works. Fresh cheeses do not.

It is not a cooking salami, but the last stub is excellent diced into a risotto or a quick tomato sauce.

A whole uncut salame is still drying when you buy it. Hung in a cool larder at 10 to 15 C with some humidity, it keeps losing water for weeks or months: it firms up, the casing shrinks and creases against the meat, the slices get smaller in diameter, and the salt and pepper concentrate. A chalky white bloom develops on natural casing in those conditions and is brushed back with a dry cloth before slicing; questions about what is on a particular piece belong to the producer or the shop that sold it.

Once it is cut the exposed face is the weak point, because it dries and darkens within hours. Cover just that face, with the flap of casing, a piece of paper or cling pressed on the cut only, and keep the piece at 4 to 12 C for two to three weeks. Over that time the fat shifts from white toward ivory and the aroma turns nuttier. Pre-sliced vacuum packs carry the maker's date and, once open, the slices curl and darken quickly. Freezing makes the texture crumbly and is not how this is kept.

The silhouette is the tell. Salame Felino IGP is tied by hand into a slightly irregular taper, thicker at one end and narrowing toward the other, in a natural casing that clings and wrinkles as it dries rather than sitting smooth like a plastic sleeve. Cut across, the grain is medium coarse: clean rosy-red lean with distinct white cubes of fat scattered through it, a few whole black peppercorns, and no fennel, no chilli, no visible herbs. The smell is mild, with garlic and white wine sitting behind the pork. Look for the IGP mark and the Felino name on the label or the tag.

American counters carry several things it is mistaken for. Genoa salami and hard salami are domestic factory products with a tangier profile and a uniform machine-cut mosaic. Milano is finer ground, wider and more regular. Soppressata is coarser and often spiced with chilli. Anything labelled simply Italian dry salami is likely made outside Italy. An imported IGP piece costs several times the deli block, and it is sold by the piece rather than pre-sliced.

In the US, Italian delis and online specialists such as Eataly and Gustiamo carry Felino, though American import rules mean many pieces are made under licence rather than shipped from Parma: check for the PGI mark. Expect roughly 16 to 28 dollars per pound whole, and more sliced.

In the UK, Italian delicatessens and online grocers stock it at about 25 to 40 pounds per kilo, with sliced packs proportionally dearer.

Check three things. The casing should be natural, which shows in the slight curve and the uneven ends; the slice should have visible, irregular white fat rather than an even pink paste; and the label should carry the blue-and-yellow PGI symbol and the consortium reference.

Avoid anything labelled "Felino style" or "tipo Felino". That wording exists precisely because the seller cannot use the protected name.

Buy a whole piece if you can. It keeps for months hanging in a cool place, improves slowly, and costs a third less per kilo than sliced trays.

Felino itself, twenty kilometres from Parma, has a salami museum in the cellars of its castle and several producers who sell directly. The salami fair, at the turn of August into September, fills the centre with stalls and open kitchens.

The trattorie of the Baganza valley around it serve the full Emilian board: Felino, culatello, coppa, cooked shoulder and strolghino, all with hot torta fritta.

In Parma, the osterie of the old centre keep it permanently, and the city's food festivals in September are the easiest way to taste the province's cured meats side by side.

It is worth extending the trip down to the Bassa (Zibello, Polesine Parmense, Busseto) where culatello is cured in the river fog. Same province, entirely different climate, entirely different salumi.