Sant’Angelo di Brolo is an ancient village in the province of Messina located on the slopes of the Nebrodi Mountains.
Here, the climatic conditions are very favourable to the seasoning of cold cuts and this is why the culinary tradition of this small village still preserves the ancient norcina technique of processing meat ‘at the point of a knife’
In the 1950s, Gaetano Rifici, a skilled village butcher, decided to make his own version of the typical salami of the Nebrodi area.
Working with expert hands only high quality meats and preferring simple and genuine raw materials, the Caputo recipe for Salame S. Angelo was born, artfully prepared according to the ancient norcina knife technique.
The history of the ancient recipe for Salame S. Angelo
The original recipe for Salame S.Angelo has very ancient origins and predates Nonno Tanu.
The arrival of the Normans in Sicily in the 11th century brought a new dietary habit to the population: the use of pork meat, hitherto forbidden by the Arab rulers.
Perfected and handed down over the centuries by the skilful hands of butchers, the ancient recipe for the salami produced in Sant’Angelo di Brolo has come down to us in all its goodness: the best cuts of pork, i.e. shoulder, leg, neck, loin and belly, derived from selected pork breeds, such as Large White, Landrace and Duroc, are diced at the point of a knife and then hand cured and seasoned with sea salt and half-grain black pepper.
The mixture is then placed inside a casing to achieve the classic cylindrical shape we all know and is left to mature for 30-90 days, depending on the size of the salami.
The substantial difference that makes this type of salami so prized is precisely the technique used in processing the meat, which is carefully hand-cut avoiding mechanical procedures to best preserve all the organoleptic characteristics of the noble raw material chosen.
The end result is a ruby-red coloured sausage that alternates lean and fatty parts with the typical irregular grain of an artisanal product.
Tender and firm when cut, it is aromatic and slightly spicy to the taste.
Salame S. Angelo PGI: the only Sicilian salami with a protected geographical indication
For over 70 years Caputo has been handing down the ancient recipe for Salame S. Angelo, the family speciality, from generation to generation.
A treasure guarded in the respect of tradition and of the special processing still practised by the salumificio, which today, not by chance, is the first producer of Salame S. Angelo PGI in the world.
In fact, in 2006 Salumi Caputo received the prestigious mark to protect the originality of the product, which is only recognised through a strict specification guaranteed by the Consortium for the Protection of Salame S. Angelo.