Grassetti: Pork Scratchings of the Garfagnana

 Participants on the Advanced Salumi Course work with three norcini (specialist pork butchers) in three different parts of Tuscany. Recipes and methods change every 20 km, depending on regional variations and family traditions. If people stay for the extension workshop, they experience a fourth point of view with another family. They learn to make authentic Tuscan salami, prosciutto, and several other air-dried and cooked pork products. One of the lesser known of these are ciccioli, or grassetti as they’re called in the Garfagnana.

Grassetti are the crispy residue of producing lard, much used in the past for frying and baking, especially in mountainous areas at altitudes where olive trees are less well adapted than the pig. The process entails cutting pork back fat (without the skin) into cubes…

Ismaele Turri cuts up a whole pig's worth of fat (note soppressata in background)

…and rendering it over a low heat until the pieces are brown.

You need a large pot.

At first Ismaele stirs frequently.

Not ready yet

Perfectly done when they're a good bronze colour

Then the pieces of hot fat are put in a press to squeeze out as much liquid fat as possible.

Ismaele's father's homemade press

The much reduced pork fat is ladled in with a perforated spoon.

A wooden plug is fitted on top...

...and screwed into place.

The resulting pork chips are salted and drained on absorbent paper.

Ismaele separates the flakes of crispy fat. Careful, they're hot!

Grassetti on carta gialla, absorbent yellow paper

They’re more addictive than salted peanuts, and chefs who attend the course realise immediately their potential as bar snacks.

Lard packaged for sale at Ismaele's farm shop at Agriturismo Venturo

Gina Piazza (whose husband Kirby Piazza took most of the photos in last week’s blog ‘Like the Seasons: the Life of a Cheesemaker’) came on the course in March and sent me this report in early June:
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We had a press made by a welder friend and from 2 pounds of back fat we came up with a handful of ciccioli—but they’re amazing and I did it just as Ismaele makes it. I have 12 pounds of fat on order so maybe next batch will yield at least a few pounds. Now I have tons of rendered fat! 

Brava Gina! They look just like the ones you made on the course.

The Advanced Salumi Courses for winter 2014–15 are almost full with one place left on the November course and three places on the February course. For more details of the course see Advanced Salumi Course Tuscany