It is an ever-present guest on Italian tables during Christmas and New Year’s Eve, traditionally served in slices with mashed potatoes and lentils. Cotechino Modena PGI is often called the father of all sausages because of the innovative way in which it was originally preserved, i.e. inside the skin of the animal itself.
Cotechino is a charcuterie product made from a mix of minced pork meat (striated muscle, fat, skin and rind or cotica, from which it takes its name) flavored with spices, wine and herbs such as cloves, pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon. Once the mixing is finished, the cotechino is put into the casing and then left to dry or pre-cooked, depending on whether it is sold fresh or pre-cooked.
Its production area covers three regions, Emilia Romagna, Lombardy and Veneto, and consequently also many cities, among which Modena certainly stands out.
As far as its diffusion is concerned, the fame of Cotechino went beyond the borders of Emilia-Romagna as early as the nineteenth century: this is testified by a letter written by the great composer Gioacchino Rossini to a producer from Modena, to whom he asked "four Zamponi and four Cotechini, all of the most delicate quality".
