To the right of the river Po stands Polesine Parmense, where the Strada del Culatello (Culatello Route) passes, a gastronomic itinerary that winds through the Bassa Parmense and allows you to taste the famous local product: the Culatello di Zibello, a fine sausage with a strong flavour. Culatello è exclusive to the Bassa (we are talking about Zibello, which è the town par excellence of culatello, Busseto, Polesine, Soragna, Roccabianca, San Secondo, Sissa and Colorno) and is prepared between November and February. In this area, the più close to the Po, the winters are particularly cold and humid, while the summers are hot and sunny. If the whole thigh is used for the raw ham, from which only the rind and part of the fat is removed, the più part is used for the culatello; precious and tender, that is the buttock. The rind, the fat, the bones and the così are then removed; called fiocchetto.
The main difference between ham and culatello is probably in the list of ingredients. If only sea salt is used for raw Parma ham, a mix of salt, garlic, pepper and in some cases dry white wine, sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate is used for culatello.
Both the seasoning of the raw and the culatello must take place in the respective production area. Culatello takes no less than ten months, in which the salami è exposed to the light and to the light; humidità natural.The shape of the raw meat we all know: round and ending with the gambetto. Perhaps not everyone knows that it is a salami, but not a sausage: è wrapped only by the rind. Culatello, instead, è a pear-shaped sausage.
A big difference between ham and culatello è the weight. If the first weighs no less than seven kilos (generally between eight and ten kilos), the second – which has no bone – può weigh to be regulated between three and five kilos.
