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Mortadella: six centuries of Bolognese tradition
Rome - (IGN) - It's not like any other deli meat and belongs more to the world of gastronomy than to that of preserved meats or sausage because it undergoes preparation and cooking processes that are so complex that they have earned European protection. It's Mortadella PGI (www.mortadellabologna.com), which was granted the European Commission's Protected Geographical Indication mark in 1998. In fact, its full name is Mortadella Bologna, because it was born six centuries ago in the region, Emilia Romagna, whose capital is Bologna, and produced by thirty companies who have come together in the national Consortium to protect it. In effect, tradition has it that this very special deli meat made from preserved pork, unique in Italy and throughout the world, was invented by the friars of a monastery that overlooks the Emilian capital at the beginning of the 16th century. The first official document, signed by Cardinal Farnese of Bologna, that establishes and codifies the procedures for its production, is dated 1661. These rules have remained more or less intact to our day. It is made exclusively from high quality cuts of pork that are minced and then reduced to fine paste and mixed with pieces of fat from only certain parts of pig. The mixture is then stuffed in the desired size, from small pieces of half a kilogram to the colossal mortadellas of the great Northern Italian deli factories, which can weigh up to 200 kilograms. Then they are cooked in large circulating air ovens, in the almost complete absence of humidity, so that the heart of the mixture is maintained at a temperature between 70 and 90 °C. A slow cooking process that can last more than an entire day and that is the only one that can guarantee the perfect consistency of the finished product and its characteristic aroma and flavour.
Preserved in cold rooms at a controlled temperature (between 4 and 8 °C), Mortadella can be consumed even many months after production, without losing its particular nutritive qualities. The opposite of what you would expect from a pork product, Mortadella is very low in cholesterol, on the order of 60-70 milligrams per hundred grams of product, similar to the so-called "white meats" like chicken and rabbit. This is a result of the selection and processing of the raw materials, which guarantee that the finished product will be 15% protein and 28% fat, of which only 9% saturated, the ones hardest to digest by the human body.
Italians love this product and eat more than 160,000 tons of it a year, putting Mortadella in third place, after cooked and raw ham, in the ranking of favourite national deli meats. But it's also highly appreciated abroad. Out of a total deli meat production of more than 1.2 million tons, which makes Italy one of the world's greatest producers, Mortadella touches the 200,000 ton mark, of which 20,000 tons destined for foreign markets, for a value of almost 70 million Euro, a number that has grown constantly for more than twenty years. The markets with the biggest appetite for Mortadella are European, especially Germany and France, followed by Austria, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Switzerland. But sales also appear to be constantly growing in the farthest markets, the United States and Japan.
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