Claudia Romeo: You may know it by the name of capocollo,
coppa, capicola, gabagool --
dozens of names to describe one Italian delicacy:
a distinctive cured meat made from pork neck,
easy to spot thanks to its vivid red color
and beautiful marbling.
Unlike ham, the fat in pork neck makes capocollo a soft,
tender, and incredibly tasty cut.
We're in the countryside of Martina Franca, Italy,
and today we're going to talk about
one of the country's finest capocollo,
capocollo di Martina Franca.
This type of capocollo is very special
because it's made from pigs that feed only on acorns
from a local tree, fragno.
And it doesn't stop there.
The tree is also very important in the making process.
Let's go find out more.
Claudia: The piece Giuseppe works with is a big one,
about 3 or 4 kilos,
which at the end of the curing process
will lose about 50% of its weight.
The meat is then seasoned with salt, pepper,
and a touch of Senise chili pepper,
a variety of chili pepper coming
from the neighboring region of Basilicata
that adds a sweet, smoky scent to the meat.
The capocollo then cures for 15 days,
and every couple of days it is rubbed by hand
to ensure it absorbs all the flavors from the spices.
Unlike other types of capocollo
that would go straight to dry-curing,
this one is also brined for six hours.
But this brine is not your average water and salt --
it's vincotto, cooked grape must.
Grape must is that thick, fresh juice you get
when crushing grapes to make wine.
Its freshness also makes it high in sugar,
a perfect sweetener but also a drink.
After casing it, Giuseppe pierces the capocollo
to allow excess air out,
firmly tying a string to it
to be able to hang it during the curing.
To make sure the capocollo
has a perfect cylindrical shape,
he first wraps it with a sock
and then puts it through a custom-made funnel.
Claudia: Wow.
The goal now is to remove
all the excess liquid from the meat.
This drying phase will happen gradually
in three different temperature-controlled environments.
The first one is a drying room,
where the meat will spend seven days
and lose all of its liquids, like grape must and blood.
The second, a pre-curing room,
is a room with high humidity levels
to reintroduce some moisture into the meat.
Claudia: After another seven days in the pre-curing room,
the meat reaches the final destination
of its curing process, the curing room.
It will stay here for 150 days.
Claudia: At the end of the 150 days,
it's time to remove the socks
to finally reveal the capocollo hiding inside.
Wow.
Claudia: Giuseppe tricked me when he said
the capocollo is calling us to taste it.
We still have another step to see: the smoking.
To better understand just how much
this step affects the final product,
we need to go back to the forest
that is so dear to Giuseppe.
While he removes all the socks,
his son Andrea tells me more
about the local oak tree, fragno.
[Andrea calling to pigs]
[pig grunting]
Claudia: Spreading from the Balkans to Turkey,
the Itria Valley is the only place in Italy
where you can find this type of oak.
The fertile soils of this hilly farmland,
together with the very Italian practice
of curing pork neck,
makes capocollo from Martina Franca
a truly unique product.
After breathing the crisp air of the Court of Fragni,
I rejoin Giuseppe in the smoking room,
or the "black room," as he likes to call it.
[meat crackling]
Wow.
Mm.
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