Prosciutto di Sauris

Sauris, or Zahre in its own German dialect, was founded in the 13th century by Carinthian, Tyrolean and Bavarian settlers who crossed the mountains and left a German-speaking island above 1,200 m in Carnic Friuli. Its ham is the direct product of that meeting of peoples: the Friulian way of preserving with salt joined to the Alpine-Germanic way of preserving with smoke. Cold beech smoke — the fire lit outside the smokehouse and drawn in through the floor — let the makers use very little salt, an approach suited to a poor high village. Its historic producer, the Prosciuttificio Wolf, grew out of a family smoking tradition and was founded in Sauris in 1962; today the appellation's two makers together turn out about 40,000 hams a year, and the European Union granted IGP protection in 2010 under Reg. CE 320/2010. Its smoked speck is the natural companion.

Thin-sliced, uniform rose-pink lean with a soft white fat, tender and supple. The taste is sweet first, then a fine, clean beech smokiness that stays in the background, never harsh or tarry; the salt is deliberately restrained, so the meat's own sweetness and the wood-smoke carry it.

Sauris ham is preserved by two barriers working together, which lets it stay low in salt. Salting lowers water activity as sodium and chloride penetrate the muscle, but less aggressively than in an unsmoked ham. Cold smoking supplies the second barrier: beech smoke deposits phenols, carbonyls and organic acids on the surface that are antimicrobial and antioxidant, slowing rancidity and checking mould, while the fire kept outside and the smoke ducted through the floor keep the meat cool, so its fat never renders and it smokes rather than cooks. Over at least ten months, muscle proteases and lipases run the usual maturation — proteolysis frees amino acids and peptides for savour and sweetness, lipolysis frees aromatic fatty acids — and the smoke's aroma compounds diffuse inward and marry with them. The thin, cool air above 1,200 m keeps the long dry-cure steady and even. Its measured make-up runs to roughly 2% sodium, about 60% water, close to 30% protein and 6–7% fat.