Prisuttu — Corsican Dry-Cured Ham AOP

Corsica, France — interior mountain zones (Niolu, Venaco, Alta Rocca). AOP 2012.

The Corsican dry-cured ham — prisuttu in the island's dialect — is produced exclusively from Porcu Nustrale pigs raised on open pasture in the maquis-covered interior. The hind leg is rubbed with sea-mineral-salt, black-pepper, and maquis-herb aromatics — dried rosemary, juniper berries, and myrtle leaves — then pressed under weighted boards for three to five weeks to draw moisture evenly through the muscle. After washing and drying, the ham hangs in ventilated stone cellars — cantina — for a minimum of twelve months, frequently extended to twenty-four or thirty-six months in the mountains above Niolu and Venaco. During this period the fat cap slowly oxidises to a pale amber-ivory, and the lean develops a deep garnet colour with white crystal deposits of tyrosine — a marker of extended cure. The chestnut-pasture and acorn-browsing diet of the Porcu Nustrale produces a fat with a high proportion of oleic acid, giving prisuttu its characteristic sweetness and long finish absent from industrially-reared alternatives. AOP since 2012.

Deep garnet-red lean with ivory-amber fat; sweetness from chestnut-pasture diet; long finish with faint maquis-herb resin; tyrosine crystals add mineral crunch at extended cure.