One of the gastronomic Tuscan delights: the Colonnata Lard
These days we often talk about the marble quarries, white as the snow on the Apuan Alps, in the western corner of Tuscany called Versilia overlooking the coast. Here is Colonnata is a small village at the foothills of the Apuan Alps, located in the municipality of Carrara, famous for its marble and its pig fat. To be more precise, its pearly-pinky-rose-coloured salt-and spice-cured pork back fat. This is how you put it all together: take a conca di marmo di Carrara, a beautifully hollowed-out piece of Carrara marble, put some tasty pork back fat into it to age and you’ll have the most famous pig fat in the world. In fact, Lardo di Colonnata, which the locals have been making for around 3,000 years, is so famous that in 2003 it was classified as a protected local speciality: Lardo di Colonnata IGP(Indicazione Geografica Protetta; ‘Protected Geographical Indication’). It needs to be at least one inch thick (2.5cm), though it is much better at 6cm, and this lardo should be aged for at least 6 months, but will be even better if aged for 10.
Lardo was the food of the local cavatori, the marble miners. Their classic staple was a giant panino stuck together with sliced tomato and beautiful, richly fragrant ribbons of spiced and aged lard, all washed down with a fiasco of red wine. This high-energy food helped to give them the energy to get the marble, a heavy and hard job. They would sometimes stay down the marble tunnels for days at a time, chipping out great slabs and columns of marble for many of the famous buildings of the Roman Empire and, later, even more precious pieces for Michelangelo to choose for his statues.
RECIPE
LARDO DI COLONNATA
3 pieces of lardo
Sale grosso (rock salt)
Pepe nero in grani (whole black peppercorns)
Cinnamon sticks
Star anise
Whole coriander seeds
Oregano
Bay leaves
The lardo or lardello or grasso duro di schiena is the back fat of the pig, which you need big chunks of with the skin still on one side. If you can find some lardo from a pig that has been freshly slaughtered, a piece of around 6cm thick would be ideal. The best thing are rectangles of around 20cm by 15cm.
Rub the whole of the inside of the conca di marmo with a clove of garlic cut in two. If you do not own a nice piece of marble make do with a plastic container a little larger than the lardoslabs and tall enough to fit the three pieces stacked on top of each other.
Now prepare the salt and spice mix: take copious amounts of rock salt, and freshly ground black pepper, using ten parts salt to one part pepper. Don’t be tempted to buy commercially ground pepper as it is usually ground too fine and lacks the freshness needed to add flavour to the lard. In a pestle and mortar grind, add the spices: cinnamon, coriander, star anise, origano; now tear in a few leaves of bay and add them to them spices. Mix all together and rub into the lard on all sides except for the skin side. Now at the bottom of the container put a bed of 5cm of salt and spice mix, then one piece of lard followed by 5cm of spice mix and another piece of lard, and so forth, until all the lard is in and covered. As you place the pieces of lard inside the container, put on some pressure. Then move the container to the fridge, adding some weight on top of the stack for more pressure.
Check your lardo each day for three days and tip off some of the run-off liquid created by the pressure and the salt; re-seal well. Now comes the hard bit: leave covered and cool in the fridge for six months. During this time the fragrances of the herbs and spices penetrate delicately into the flavour of the lardo. It firms up somewhat through the ageing process and a creamier, softer fat is created, the best quality of which has a slight pink hue.
