Figatellu — Smoked Pork Liver Sausage IGP

Figatellu is Corsica's most distinctive charcuterie product — a smoked sausage of pork liver and fatty pork trimmings that occupies a unique dual-use position: eaten fresh and grilled in winter (figatelli frais), or dried and sliced as a cured product in summer. The forcemeat is pork liver, heart, lungs, and fatty collar, minced coarsely and seasoned with sea-mineral-salt, black-pepper, garlic, and Corsican red wine — frequently Niellucciu — before being packed into natural pig intestine casing and cold-smoked over chestnut wood or maquis-herb branches. The smoking phase — four to eight hours — is what separates figatellu from all Italian salsiccia cognates: the smoke drives moisture from the casing and adds a resinous chestnut-wood note that becomes the sausage's signature. Fresh figatellu grilled on a wood fire and served with pulenda (chestnut polenta) is the defining winter evening meal of the Corsican interior — the fat renders into the polenta, the liver iron and the chestnut sweetness creating a pairing that is inseparable from island food culture. IGP since July 2023.

Corsica, France — island-wide, winter production season (October–March for fresh; dried year-round).

Chestnut-smoke, iron-rich liver, garlic, Corsican red-wine; fresh-grilled renders fatty and charred at edges; dried is dense and resinous with concentrated umami.

Liver content must be kept below 35% of total forcemeat — higher concentrations produce a bitter, grainy texture and an iron-dominant flavour that overwhelms the other aromatics. Cold-smoke only: hot-smoke renders the fat prematurely and cooks the liver, destroying the cured-fresh distinction. Chestnut wood is preferred; beech is acceptable; oak produces excessive tannin.

Sus scrofa domesticus — Porcu Nustrale; offal from liver, heart, lung; IGP mandates Corsican-born pigs.