Lardo is traditionally considered the "poor man's dish," but it can now be found at some of the most upscale restaurants in Europe. One of the oldest lardo producers in Colonnata, Italy, is Larderia Mafalda, making about 22,000 kilograms of lardo per year — all processed by hand in special Carrara marble. It's a family recipe that's been passed down for four generations.
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00:00Carrara is famous all over the world for its marble cables, but our strong point here in Colonnata,
00:09given how it is positioned, is the lardo, the lardo IGP.
00:13The origin of the lardo is a very poor plate.
00:17It was probably the only companion that the carpenters brought to work.
00:23We are the oldest factory in Colonnata, since 1930,
00:27so we feel really strong about this product.
00:40Fresh lardo, ready to be cleaned and salted.
00:45So, today, 816 kg.
00:48Then it has to be all shredded.
00:50This butcher comes from Fidenza, Busseto, Parma.
00:57We do this once a week, sometimes twice.
01:04Now we go inside the larderia.
01:08Step by step.
01:14With this one, we have a load of 300 kg.
01:17But usually we bring 5 kg.
01:19But this one already weighs 100 kg.
01:27Be careful, be careful.
01:30Evidently, each box weighs more.
01:34They are big pieces.
01:43This is the piece that starts from the neck of the pig, the head.
01:49It comes down, and then it pulls at a certain point, because then the belly starts.
01:54The lardo is on top.
01:56It turns, and basically goes to the back.
01:59And it comes up to here.
02:01We start by removing the soft fat part.
02:05A bit of lean.
02:07This is the first pass, before salting the lardo.
02:12Because we are going to remove that softer part.
02:16Here there is a bit of bone.
02:18Tender bone.
02:20Lardo is famous because it melts in the mouth.
02:23It breaks inside.
02:25Here there are veins, blood.
02:27So they don't go well.
02:28They have to be removed.
02:30We keep the meat on one side.
02:32And the fat on the other.
02:35May is a month where the lardo is more beautiful.
02:39It's because of the temperature.
02:41The temperature rises a bit, so the pig is better.
02:45Spring makes it even more hungry.
02:49We are at a family level.
02:53With this collaborator, Fabio, we can make our 220 quintals.
02:58High season.
03:01So we weigh, because each conca is numbered.
03:05We are around 7.5 kg.
03:088 kg.
03:10I beat, he doesn't.
03:12Because I'm older than him.
03:15So I have my ideas.
03:17The old ones taught me things that I learned.
03:20The young ones want to learn.
03:22I did it in the conca.
03:24I do it because the straighter it is, the better it sticks.
03:27And it takes less air.
03:29Got it?
03:30It's all there.
03:32The conca is the marble container that is used to season the meat.
03:36It is born as a thing to preserve food.
03:39Marble that must be of a particular quality.
03:42Not all marbles in Carrara are good for this.
03:45We need marble called canalone.
03:47Because it takes its name from the extractive locality.
03:51It's adjacent to the village of Colonnata.
03:55Because it has a particular quality.
03:57It's almost 100% carbonized limestone.
04:00It's very resistant.
04:02This was previously washed.
04:04It was obviously full of lard.
04:06Marble has a porosity.
04:08If you can't work with chemical agents,
04:10you throw it back inside.
04:12So the only thing you can use is hot water, vinegar and elbow oil.
04:17Now we're going to work with the Polesano garlic of Rovigo.
04:21To soften the inner surfaces of the conca.
04:25Because it gives a lot of taste to the lard.
04:28But it also acts as an antibacterial.
04:30Because garlic is a natural antibacterial.
04:32Now we're going to put the salt back.
04:34We're preparing the conca to go and season the lard.
04:37We're going to cover it, more or less,
04:39to make a pavement.
04:41So that the lard is not in direct contact with the marble.
04:43This is rosemary that we previously harvested in our fields.
04:47We grow it ourselves.
04:49It's ready to go to bed.
04:51We're going to massage the lard.
04:53Before putting it in the conca,
04:55we massage it with coarse or medium salt.
04:59And in this case, from Sardinia.
05:03All sides.
05:07And we're going to put it in the conca.
05:11Now we're going to add the spices inside.
05:14Trying to form a kind of puzzle.
05:17We're trying to fit them as much as we can.
05:26And here we go with the spices.
05:28I can tell you what they are, not the percentages.
05:30We have coriander, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon and clove.
05:34Combined with black pepper.
05:36It's a recipe passed down through time.
05:38For many years.
05:41Every producer has his own recipe.
05:43You can get 20 spices from a disciplinary.
05:48It's all about technique.
05:50You lean here, cross your legs and stay in balance.
05:54One, two.
05:56These are tailor-made for me.
05:58He's 2 or 3 cm shorter.
06:00It's a bit tricky.
06:02See how I put the horizontal pieces first?
06:05Now we're going to do the opposite.
06:07I'm going to put the horizontal pieces on the opposite side.
06:11The previous one.
06:13To try to block it a bit more.
06:15When the lardo goes through the aging process,
06:17when it comes in contact with the salt,
06:19it releases a bit of liquid.
06:21So it tends to shrink.
06:23If you don't press it well, the lardo will float.
06:25This shouldn't happen.
06:27The fact of making the piece wider
06:29is to beat it a lot.
06:31It's just typical of colonnade.
06:34It's another kind of salami.
06:37It's salted with these methods.
06:41It's made of air.
06:43It doesn't need to take in air.
06:45It doesn't need to oxidize.
06:49By law, we have a product that needs to age for 6 months.
06:53And it softens.
06:55You can feel it.
06:57When you eat it, the slice is more meltable.
07:00If you eat the lardo,
07:02which is sold around,
07:04if you taste it,
07:06you can immediately feel that it's not aged.
07:08You can't even chew it.
07:10Because it's not aged enough.
07:12And that effect of softness and meltability
07:14comes from the aging of the marble,
07:16and the timing of the aging.
07:20Sea salt washed.
07:22And it's the only preservative we have.
07:24Here we need about 680 kg of lardo, 690 kg.
07:28We need 16 lardos.
07:30Let's make the last row of the conca.
07:33It's the most important one.
07:36Because we need to try to
07:39press it as hard as possible.
07:42Because it's the first one,
07:44so it's the one that risks the most.
07:47It's the one that's exposed the most to bad weather.
07:51The last row.
07:53Let's try to add some more small pieces.
07:56To try to let as little oxygen as possible in.
08:05We always add a bit more salt in the last one.
08:08Now you can see that we're above the level of the conca.
08:11This goes down with time.
08:18The colonnade comes from the Roman colony,
08:21from the slaves that came here two centuries ago.
08:25To break the marble.
08:27The Carrara marble is famous
08:30because it's used all over the world.
08:33Especially used for the building.
08:37In any kind.
08:39Floors, coatings, steps.
08:42This work is the history of Carrara.
08:45This is a mountain that has been working for 800 years.
08:50The marble has formed over centuries.
08:54For limestone sedimentation.
08:57It's pure calcium carbonate, 98% practically.
09:01According to the Italians, it's a decision that the carvers make.
09:04Morning by morning.
09:06Because every time the mountain gives you a rebus to solve.
09:09Each carver has a different white marble from the other.
09:13See?
09:15These veneers are a peculiarity of Carrara's white marble.
09:20For example, in Greece, it's difficult to find such veined marbles.
09:25They said that the only good marble to make the lardo
09:28was the Carrara marble.
09:30Because having the fine grain, it was not detachable from the marble.
09:34The colonnade lardo is aged for a year and two months in the conca.
09:38It loses cholesterol by 80%.
09:41Each carver has its own story.
09:43This is the beauty of marble.
09:46Here we have 22 conca in this laboratory.
09:50Plus we have another one, which is 9.
09:53So a total of 31.
09:54You feel that the temperature is different from outside.
09:57And there is no temperature control aid.
09:59It's the marble that gives you this freshness.
10:02This is a conca in the aging phase.
10:05This is 8 months of aging.
10:07The salamoy is very important for the aging of the lardo.
10:12Because it stabilizes it, it stops it.
10:14And it ensures that oxygen does not enter inside.
10:17When the lardo is like this, it can go on for years.
10:20Without oxygen, there is no problem.
10:22Clearly, when we go to pack this stuff, it goes on.
10:25Half salt in the first row, the whole salamoy is removed and everything breaks off.
10:29And you have the lardo in its optimal shape.
10:32We usually work like this.
10:33We rinse it in its salamoy.
10:36This is the upper part of the shoulder,
10:39where the product is a little more lean.
10:41Now we're going to clean it up,
10:43to give it a better visual look for sale.
10:46And the fundamental thing of the GP lardo
10:49for the packaging part is this.
10:52Every single piece that comes out of here,
10:54we have to apply a seal.
10:56And this is useful for us for the traceability of the product.
10:59So that if tomorrow there was any kind of problem,
11:03I know how to trace what number it was.
11:05And I even go back to the fight of the animal when it was alive.
11:09We can only sell them in vacuum packaging.
11:13Here's the product.
11:15Here it is, finished.
11:16The label identifies everything.
11:18The weight, the price, the concave, the batch production.
11:22You see, 0523 stands for May 2023.
11:27Now let's bring all the pieces we've prepared to the shop,
11:31ready for sale.
11:40Amafada, the first to sell lardo with a taxi in 1928.
11:46Here's how the piece looks when we bring it to the shop.
11:49But then, to be able to slice it,
11:51especially with a slicer, but also by hand,
11:54you have to remove the part above that has the salt.
11:57And also the part of the rind.
12:00It should come like this,
12:02to be able to slice it well, to taste it well.
12:10Very good.
12:11Nice and soft, the right softness.
12:15Not salty, not dry.
12:18Colonnata is a concave,
12:20surrounded by marble caves,
12:23and away from a sea scenery.
12:26So a microclimate, very suitable and unique to make colonnata lardo.
12:31So much so that the colonnata lardo,
12:34made also in the nearby villages,
12:37doesn't have the same success.
12:39The process of our lardo should start with colonnata,
12:43and end with colonnata.
12:46So this lardo that we've just cut,
12:48I'll put it in these papers,
12:50that we'll bring to my mother-in-law,
12:52where she'll make a recipe with a special colonnata specialty.
12:58Today we're making coniglio lardato,
13:01an old recipe for colonnata.
13:04These are the spices that we use to salt the lardo.
13:11Let's start with the salt.
13:16I got married in 1961,
13:20and I started making all these delicacies.
13:25This is the most particular one.
13:28This is a vegetable called bietola,
13:31and we'll start putting it on top.
13:33Until recently, I had a restaurant,
13:36and it was one of the most popular dishes,
13:40the coniglio, made like this.
13:42To cover everything, we need to add a slice of cotto cheese.
13:47Now I have to roll it up.
13:50It's really a recipe for colonnata.
13:54It's a traditional recipe for colonnata,
13:57that's been around for centuries.
14:01I'll let it cook a bit,
14:03I'll turn it,
14:05and then I'll add the white wine.
14:08Can you already smell it?
14:12It has to cook for 40 minutes.
14:17I've been doing this for 29 years, with pride.
14:20My wife's relatives sent me here,
14:26to salt the lardo on a Saturday morning.
14:29I started by watching,
14:31and then they told me,
14:33don't waste time.
14:36I've given my whole life to these two things.
14:39It's a tiring job,
14:41it requires a lot of attention,
14:44and I hope I can carry it on for years to come.
14:49And above all, leave it to someone
14:52who wants to do this job,
14:55because this job has only one secret,
14:58passion.
15:00So, with colonnata, the old producers
15:03have this feeling,
15:05and this pride,
15:07of bringing this product,
15:09from a poor product,
15:11to the richest tables in Rome.
15:19www.ottobock.com