Finocchiona

the Tuscan salami cured with wild fennel seed and red wine, soft enough that it crumbles under the knife

Origin: Florence & Tuscany

From the journey of Fennel.

Finocchiona is a Tuscan pork salami seasoned with wild fennel seed and red wine and very little else, and its distinguishing quality is that it does not slice cleanly. Cut thick, the softer versions crumble under the knife, which is why the crumbliest kind has its own name, sbriciolona, from sbriciolare, to crumble. That is a fault everywhere else and the point here. The origin story is about theft and is almost certainly better than the truth. The usual account holds that a thief at a fair near Prato stole a fresh salami and hid it in a stand of wild fennel, returning later to find it had taken up the aromatic and improved; a second version says fennel was used to disguise doubtful meat, and a third that a merchant offered fennel-heavy salami alongside a poor wine so buyers could not judge it. The Italian verb infinocchiare, to hoodwink or to take somebody in, is generally traced to that last story. The etymology is repeated in every account of the sausage and demonstrated in none of them, and it is a good story either way. What is not in doubt is that fennel was cheap and pepper was not. Tuscany grew fennel on every roadside and imported black pepper at cost, and a peasant charcuterie tradition that seasons with the free aromatic instead of the expensive one is a perfectly sufficient explanation without any thieves in it. The same reasoning runs through a good deal of Italian cured meat. Finocchiona has held IGP status since 2015, which sets the cut, the fennel, and the minimum cure. It is eaten in thick slices with unsalted Tuscan bread, which is unsalted precisely because what goes on it is not.

Ingredients

Meat

  • 1.6 kg pork shoulder, well trimmed
  • 400 g pork back fat, hard and white

Cure

  • 50 g fine sea salt
  • 5 g curing salt no. 2 (with nitrate)
  • 20 g caster sugar or dextrose

Seasoning

  • 4 tbsp wild fennel seed, lightly crushed
  • 1 tbsp fennel pollen, if you have it
  • 6 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 120 ml dry red Tuscan wine, cold
  • 2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

To fill

  • 1 large beef bung or wide hog casing, soaked

Method

  1. Read this first: this is a dry-cured product eaten raw, so the curing salt, the weights, and the humidity are food safety rather than preference. Weigh everything precisely and do not improvise the cure.
  2. Chill the pork and fat until almost frozen. Cold meat cuts cleanly; warm fat smears and gives a greasy salami that will not dry properly.
  3. Mince the shoulder coarsely, on a 6mm to 8mm plate, and dice the back fat by hand into 5mm cubes.
  4. Crush the fennel seed lightly rather than grinding it, so there are whole and half seeds to meet as you eat.
  5. Steep the crushed garlic in the cold red wine for twenty minutes, then strain the wine and discard the garlic solids.
  6. Mix the meat and fat with both salts, the sugar, the fennel, the pollen, the pepper, and the garlic wine. Work it for three or four minutes until it turns sticky and the fat is evenly distributed.
  7. Cover and refrigerate for twenty-four hours so the cure penetrates evenly.
  8. Stuff into the soaked casing very tightly, working out every air pocket, since air trapped inside is where spoilage starts. Prick any bubbles you can see.
  9. Tie the salami firmly along its length and weigh it, writing the starting weight on the tag.
  10. Hang it somewhere at about 12°C and 75 to 80 per cent humidity. A wine fridge with a bowl of salt water in it is the usual domestic answer.
  11. Cure for six to ten weeks. It is ready when it has lost 35 to 40 per cent of its starting weight, which is why you weighed it, and is firm along its whole length with no soft patches.
  12. A white bloom of mould on the outside is correct and desirable; anything green, black, or fuzzy is not, and should be wiped off with vinegar or the salami discarded.

Notes

The 35 to 40 per cent weight loss is the only reliable test of readiness and the reason the starting weight matters. Curing salt no. 2 is not optional in a long dry cure and is sold by any charcuterie supplier. Keep the meat and fat cold and pack the casing without air pockets. Wild fennel seed is stronger and more resinous than the cultivated kind and is what the IGP specifies; fennel pollen, if you can get it, is the same aromatic concentrated and a little goes a long way. Slice it thick, which is how Tuscany eats it, and accept that a good finocchiona will crumble.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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