Our Meat and our cured meat
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| Our meat |
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Our cattle are born in certified farms in the Appenines,
from both Piedmont and Liguria. These are Limusine cattle which stay
outdoors for about 8 months of the year. The calves are born at the
end of the winter and are pastured with their mothers until the following
autumn, when they are
transferred to the cowshed. In our cowshed the cattle are kept in sizeable stalls, and have access to outside space when weather permits. They are fed twice a day with our own hay and with a mixture of barley, protein pellets and bran. The barley and bran are residual products of our own grain harvest and are certified organic, the rest of the animal food is always purchased from farms with organic certification. Our animals are usually treated homeopathically when unwell. In those rare cases in which it is necessary to use allopathic medicines, such as antibiotics, we follow the rules of organic certification, which require that the animal not be slaughtered until at least twice the length of time has elapsed which was recommended by the pharmaceutical company. Our cattle are killed when they are about two years old, in our own abattoir, and after about 4 days the meat is ready to be sold. |
| Our cured meats and sausage. |
| The production of raw salami
has a long historical pedigree in these valleys. It benefits from the
nearby maritime climate which allows the sausage to be well-cured. Our
raw salami is made from the best cuts of pork, subjected to a natural
heating of around 30-40? during the curing process. It can only be eaten after at least a hundred days of preparation. The other cured meats we make are pancetta, ‘la coppa’ (a sausage prepared with wine and pepper, which is smoked and then dried), and ‘la testa in cassetta’ (a brawn of boiled pigs head preserved with rum, marsala and salt). We should also put our ‘bresaola’ (salt beef) in this category although it is made from beef. |