Parma Ham

The practice of preserving meat with salt is firmly rooted in Italian culture. It is really the marriage of two traditions, the use of sea salt from Mediterranean cultures and the Celtic taste for pork. The remains of so-called “turbary” pigs have been found alongside fragments of oak wood and acorns in the bronze-age Terramare villages near Parma, evidence that some form of pig farming was practised in the Emilia region during this period.

The Etruscans of the 5th century BC are known to have used salt to preserve pork and, as testified by the writings of Varro and Columella (De salatura suillae carnis), the Romans perpetuated the practice in the centuries that followed.

The primary reason for preserving meat was to provide rations for the armed forces. Indeed, Christopher Columbus requested supplies of this indispensable foodstuff for his second voyage of discovery to the Americas.

Eating ‘raw’ cured ham, however, is a relatively recent phenomenon, a 19th-century development. Previously, the meat would be cooked before eating, allowing some of the salt to be removed and the meat to be moistened – both processes necessitated by the generous quantities of salt used in preserving meats in relatively unhygienic conditions. The celebrated Roman gourmet Apicius advised that the meat be cooked simply in water with dried figs, pieces of bread and reduced grape must or spiced wine (ex aqua cum caricis cocta simpliciter, ut solet, inlata cum budelli, coroeno vel condito). It was the advent of modern refrigeration that gave birth to the ageing process we know today.