Lard is a product associated with the mountain. In the past it was considered much more precious as it was the only condiment available at a high altitude all year round, because olive oil for example, was too expensive to be bought regularly and olive trees couldn’t stand the low mountain temperatures. Perhaps something not everyone knows is that lard is produced from the subcutaneous fat layer of the pig's back releasing saturated fat during the maturing process, which thanks to ideal temperatures of the natural materials in which it ages to our eyes it presents richer than ever in omega 9. In short, it seems that paradoxically lard is not as fat and harmful as we think it is.
Lard represents the cultural answer to a natural need, that is a product created and perfected over time by man to make up for the harsh mountain climate by making the best use of what’s available on its territory, so much so that its final realization depends on local materials: Lardo di Colonnata from marble basins, bowls, and Lardo d'Arnad from wooden containers, doils in patois. Besides the materials in which they mature though what are the differences between these two products?
Lardo di Colonnata PGI
In Colonnata, in the province of Massa-Cassara, lard has always been made. Here, every family, as in most of Italy until the 1950s had at least two pigs and lard was made at home, but it was above all a snack for the quarrymen and part of their food culture. Yet in the past according to the older generations there wasn’t all the competition among the fifteen remaining producers that exist today, even if in the meantime this product has now become a PGI; a hard earned but misplaced defeat because in the fury of squabbling between them they let the festival slip away, which brought at least some people there. But this doesn’t take away the fact that every single producer, even with his own rules and individual (and secret) methods of processing, continue to carry out his craft to perfection. This is the case for example for Al Lardo Al Lardo, Marmifera or Giannarelli, which differentiate themselves from the others with the production of black pork fat and sustainable salt, obtained from the brine of the maturing process. Moreover since 1953, Giannarelli have had such total and profound respect for the wellbeing of their products that colorants, preservatives, or various nitrates have never been seen. And like everyone else, they cured their lard in basins of a very high quality, fine-grained marble, called slide, where first garlic is rubbed. But the secret of each family recipe lies in the different quantities and balance of spices and aromatic herbs, which are offset differently according to ancient wisdom handed down through generations, the same wisdom that no machine could ever replace. These include coriander, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and other secret herbs mixed with sea salt. Then, due to the high humidity, everything spontaneously turns into brine, which in fact is much more solid than Arnad's brine. After about six months, Lardo di Colonnata is ready to serve. How? On bread and pizza croutons or, as the mountain would have it, with polenta.
Lard d'Arnad DOP
Records of it can be traced back to the 1500, when it was traded for Swiss salt. Then in 1996 this lard produced in Valle D'Aosta became the only PDO lard in the whole of Europe, with bold total traceability: everything about the production and marketing of this product originates in the declared territory, for example the pigs come from Lombardy (the first region of pig breeding), Emilia Romagna (the second), Piedmont (the third) and Liguria. Historical stronghold of its production, and in general of the Valdostan food culture, is the Bertolin family, who opened the first butcher shop in the town in 1957. Later, at the end of the nineties, they became three with the Arnad Le Vieux Salumificio Arnad and the Laurent brothers. They all obtain Lard d'Arnad from processing only the shoulder of the pig, degreased, squared and then put to mature in doils, the old cubic-shaped containers made of oak, larch or chestnut wood, where it spends three months in water, salt and aromatic mountain herbs such as juniper, rosemary, bay leaves, laurel, pepper, nutmeg, sage, to surface more compact and fibrous than ever. For more than 40 years the Associazione Lo Doil has been helping with the promotion, with thousands of visitors coming from all over the world every last Sunday in August for the Féhta dou Lar festival. On all the other days of the year, you can find Lard d'Arnad as an appetizer in typical Valdostan snacks, with honey and black rye bread, pan dür, along with other products such as chestnuts and moccetta. For all these reasons it will perhaps now be clear that you don’t have to choose between one or the other as they have two different flavors and two different destinations in the kitchen. Now you have no more excuses, lard isn’t all that fattening!
