There is a Land, blessed by God,
placed between the Appennini and the PO river, where a tongue of 30 KM of soil
makes possible the production of some of the most famous Italian Delicacy.
Our grandparents called this piece
of land that runs simultaneously with the longest Italian River, which is
divided in two by the Via Emilia, the ancient Roman road built to stop the
northern populations from invading the Roman Empire, "Bassa” or Low Land.
For our generation, English-speaking
people, it is The Food Valley, the sacred heart of Pianura Padana,
comprehensive of the provinces of Piacenza, Modena, Reggio Emilia and Parma.
In those lands, where once upon a
time there were just woods and marshland, Cistercians Monks built Abbeys where
they put together the knowledge and the hard work of multiples farmers and
their families, with the products that were easy to grow here, to make the
famous Parmigiano Reggiano.
In this very same place, pork meat
is cured to make Culatello and Prosciutto di Parma, Coppa and Salame di Felino,
Strolghino and Pancetta.
The Culatello, "The King of Fogs”,
was born in the territory most close to the PO river, where the fog, that
anywhere else is mentioned as a plague, here became a blessing: without it
running thru the basements, making possible to moulds to grow, The Culatello
would just have been a random cured piece of meat left aging.
In this unique land, where since the
very beginning people were fighting against mother nature to make possible the
growth of its own products, our history teaches that since the time in which
the Great Giulio Caesar was Emperor, fighting the Gallic wars and bringing back
his legions to spend the winter in the Pianura Padana, native people of this
land were already working pork meat on large scale.
