Lucanica — The Ancient Sausage of Basilicata

Basilicata (ancient Lucania). The lucanica is first described by Roman author Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BCE) and appears in Apicius. The Basilicatan people's skill in sausage-making was sufficiently notable that they brought it as enslaved workers to Rome, where the sausage took the name of their homeland.

Lucanica (or Lucanicae) is perhaps the oldest named sausage in Western food literature: documented by Roman writers Marcus Terentius Varro and Apicius as a Lucanian (Basilicatan) invention brought to Rome by Lucanian slaves. The sausage that has carried this name for 2,000 years is a coarsely ground pork sausage seasoned with black pepper, fennel seeds, and dried peperoncino, stuffed in natural casings and either cured (for slicing) or used fresh (for grilling or frying). It is the direct ancestor of the Calabrian and Campanian luganega.

The black pepper heat, fennel sweetness, and peperoncino warmth combine in a coarsely textured, juicy sausage. Grilled, the casing chars and the fennel aromatics caramelise. The flavour is forthright and satisfying — the oldest documented sausage in Italian culinary history, still tasting of its origins.