La Pitina, a unique food and wine experience

The essentially rural economy of Italy has given birth to food and wine excellences, recognised throughout the world, born essentially to meet the primary needs of a mostly rural population: finding and preserving food.

It was from this need that pitina originated. This dish, of peasant origin, was created to satisfy the need to preserve meat during the autumn and winter months in the traditionally poor areas of the valleys north of Pordenone, in Val Tramontina and Val Cellina. The basic ingredient is lean meat from sheep or game, flavoured with pork fat. The meat was minced together with salt, garlic and black pepper in the pestadora, a hollowed-out wooden log, and then formed into small meatballs, which were dipped in cornmeal and smoked on the hearth shelf, called a fogher in the local dialect.

Nowadays, smoking is carried out with beech wood and various aromatic woods and the Pitina is matured for at least 30 days. The different spices and sizes give rise to variations with highly significant taste notes evocative of a rural tradition, born and handed down by individual families.

Pitina PGI is mainly served raw and sliced, but it is also used in the preparation of various dishes: added to polenta broth with juniper and rosemary, blanched in vinegar or barbecued and served with polenta, cooked in fresh cow's milk, or browned in butter and onion and added to potato soup.

Pitina, therefore, is not just a simple sausage of peasant origin, but a true sensory experience, to be paired with the great white wines of Friuli, allowing us to taste every nuance of an ancient culture born and developed among these magnificent Italian valleys.

Content compiled with information provided by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Partner