DELICIOUS AND UNIQUE RAGUSA DONKEY SALAMI FROM THE SLOW FOOD PRESIDIUM: AN ARTISAN AND AWARD-WINNING SALAMI OF THE SICILIAN TRADITION, FOR REFINED AND DEMANDING PALATES

The Ragusan donkey salami represents the spearhead of the company "Il Chiaramontano", which receives the "Best in Sicily" award in 2012, for excellence and Sicilian food and wine innovation; The production of this salami is ancient and linked to the peasant tradition of Ragusa.

The fine dough is obtained by carefully selecting the leanest parts, to which pork meat is added in a minimum percentage. Tied by hand and slowly seasoned.

When cut, it is compact, tender, particularly dark in color, an intrinsic characteristic of horse meat; Unique taste particularly delicate, different from any other common salami.

Once the donkey was an important presence in the countryside of southern Italy. The Ragusan breed is one of the youngest: only in 1953 the Institute of Equestrian Increment of Catania managed to establish some typological characteristics. The Ragusan donkey has a dark bay coat with a "snake or deer" belly, a gray muzzle with shaved hairs, black mane and tail, not heavy head, almost straight profile, wide and flat forehead, large eyes circled with white hair, well-worn ears, straight and of medium length, wide rump and robust limbs. Like most local breeds of donkeys, today the Ragusa is also at risk of extinction: there are about a thousand heads left. The donkey is much longer lived than the horse: it can reach up to 45 years. Perhaps its use in fatigue tasks in the countryside is no cheaper, but it has another little-known value: its milk, in fact, has characteristics very similar to the human one.

The need for the Slow Food Presidium was born in order to protect and save this unique breed from extinction. In recent decades, in fact, the Ragusan donkey has no longer been used for work in the fields.