Capocollo di Martina Franca con Fichi e Mostarda

Puglia

The most celebrated Apulian cured meat — capocollo from Martina Franca, a cured and naturally smoked pork collar rubbed with a combination of local spices (pepper, juniper, bay), cured in wine brine and then smoked over oak and almond wood. The smoke is what distinguishes Martina Franca capocollo from all other Italian capocolli. Served with fresh figs and mostarda as the canonical antipasto.

• Cold-smoked pork collar — the Bavarian version uses a similar cold-smoke technique with different wood species and spice rubs → Coppa affumicata bavarense German
• Cured pork collar (coppa) from Iberian pigs — the Spanish version without smoking; the same muscle cut cured in salt and hung → Cabecero de lomo ibérico Spanish
• Cold-smoked cured pork collar from Corsica — the island version using chestnut wood smoke rather than almond and oak → Coppa corse fumée Corsican

Smoke-perfumed, peppery and deeply porky; the fat is the prize — it melts on the tongue releasing almond and oak smoke; lean sections give texture; fig sweetness and mostarda sharpness complete the bite