Finocchiona is a Protected Geographical Indication (IGP) on the national list approved by the Ministry of Agriculture And Forestry, whose requirements are regulated by the production discipline of the Tuscany Region.

Features

Finocchiona is a typical sausage characterized by the aroma of fennel, used in seeds and/or flowers in the dough.
The texture is soft of the slice which sometimes tends to crumble.
The sizes range from small sizes from 0.5 kg of weight to bag to larger sizes up to a maximum of 25 kg of weight to the bag.

The Finocchiona must have the following characteristics when entering the consumer:
– external appearance: the sausage is cylindrical in shape and on the outer surface has a characteristic flowering or plucking due to mold that develops during the seasoning phase.
– cut appearance: The slice must be consistent to soft which sometimes tends to crumble. The slice has a dough with fat particles distributed in order to wrap the muscle fractions leaving the product soft even after long periods of seasoning. The fat and the lean, of medium coarse grain, have no well-defined boundaries. The slice appears with colors ranging from the flesh red of the lean parts to the white/white-pink of the fatty parts, with possible evidence of seeds and/or fennel flowers.
– scent: pleasant and characteristic smell due to the marked aroma of fennel and light garlic;
– flavor: fresh and appetizing, never sour.

Production

The raw material for the production of Finocchiona consists of fresh meat sits made from heavy pork carcasses.
The heavy pig is in fact characteristic of northern central Italy and has a properly refined genetics.
It is bred for at least 9 months, in order to reach high weights and meat suitable for the production of Finocchiona.

For the production of Finocchiona you can use only the following cuts: boneless and degreased shoulder, ham trimmings, traculo, gorges without glands, lean bacon and throat, cup meat, bacon and pancetton.
These cuts must not have been frozen.

The ingredients that must be added, for 100 kg of dough to be bagged, are:
– Rooms: between 2.5 and 3.5 kg;
– Ground pepper: between 50 and 100 grams;
– Pepper in grains and/or broken and/or grained: between 150 and 400 grams;
– Garlic and/or garlic dehydrated in equivalent dose, added in such a way that the total amount is still between 50 and 100 grams;
– Fennel seeds and/or fennel flowers in equivalent dose, added in such a way that the total amount is still between 200 and 500 grams.

The cuts of meat are clean, according to local technique, removing the larger connective parts and the soft fatty tissue. Properly prepared pork is reduced to pieces and passed to the meat grinder using moulds with holes between 4.5 and 8 mm in diameter.
After grinding, we move on to kneading in order to have a dough in which the minced meat and the various ingredients, which are added to it, are well mixed together.

Then the dough is stuffed into gut, natural or glued. This is followed by string ligature or, as an alternative to string, using pre-packaged net or inflow net on the sausage made from natural materials. Clips or other metal or plastic locking systems are not allowed for the closure of the gut, unless the product is intended for other processing before sale, such as shearing or slicing, in these cases the closure must be removed.

Exclusively for finocchiona weighing more than 6 kg and up to 25 kg, it is allowed to use both guts and synthetic nets, as well as closure with clips or other metal or plastic locking systems.
The pitch of the Finocchiona, expressed in the weight of the product to the bag, must not be less than 0.5 kg.

After the bag, the Finocchiona is subjected to the drying which is the period during which you have the most accentuated dehydration. To achieve this, Finocchiona is kept in environments with a temperature of between 12 and 25 degrees Celsius.

At the end of the drying phase begins the seasoning phase that is done with temperatures between 11 and 18 degrees Celsius and a relative humidity between 65 and 90%.
The duration of the drying and aging period should not be less than the table below.

Finocchiona can be entered for bulk consumption or packaged.
In order to put the sliced product into the packaging, the slicing and consequent packaging, even in a vacuum or in a protective atmosphere, must take place exclusively in the production area under the supervision of the production structure. authorised control in order to ensure the quality of the product and in particular to avoid the alteration of the characteristics.

In fact, by its nature the product has a mixture of particles of lean meat and fat, finely chopped, such that the slice is particularly delicate for both handling and slicing.
The preparation of the product for slicing also involves the elimination of the gut with direct exposure of the edible part to the external environment; exposure to uncontrolled environmental conditions for unfamiliar periods alters the characteristics of the product, giving rise to oxidative phenomena, color alterations, excessive loss of moisture with worsening of the particular consistency of the slice (which tends to crumble) and the strong aromatic component due to the use of fennel, characteristics that have made Finocchiona famous to consumers.

Therefore, in order to ensure and preserve the maintenance of the original characteristics of the product, it is necessary that the slicing and packaging are performed by staff who have specific knowledge of the product, reducing as much as possible the time of product in contact with the air.
In addition, the possibility that the product intended for slicing will be stored for periods not known in environmental conditions other than those provided by the disciplinary, could lead to the rooting of characteristics that are contrasting with those for those the product is known, such as the irrancide (yellow fat coloring, acrid, bitter and spicy taste and smell), drying (dry consistency with gut that tends to detach from the rest), the formation of abnormal molds (excessive colonies of mold covering the casing), the bulge (decomposed dough, establishing putrefactive processes) or even the embossing (abnormal coloring from red-dark to red-brown of the dough), such as to generate flavors, scents and a consistency of the different slices from those historically appreciated by the consumer or the marked aroma of the fennel and light garlic and a soft consistency of the slice that sometimes tends to crumble.