Ciauscolo

Ciauscolo (spreadable salami from Marche) is a very soft pork salami that is not sliced but spread on bread; a PGI since 2009. Finely minced belly, shoulder and fatty trimmings are seasoned with salt, pepper, wine and crushed garlic, stuffed into natural gut and aged in the cold climate of the Sibylline Mountains.

In October 1851 the Notarial Archive of Camerino recorded a priced list of foodstuffs, and «Ciauscolo» was on it. Back then a farming family kept one pig, and ciauscolo was made from what was left after the prime cuts. The Zingarelli dictionary dates the word to 1939 and defines it as a very soft, «slightly smoked» sausage; since 2000 it has been on the national list of traditional foods.

Under the 2008 single document, the mix takes up to 70 % belly, up to 40 % shoulder and up to 30 % ham and loin trimmings; a 2025 amendment rewrote this clause. Italian Large White and Landrace pigs and Duroc offspring are slaughtered between the end of month 9 and the end of month 15, at an average live weight of 170 kg, each animal 145–200 kg. Boars and sows are banned.

The meat is minced very finely, mixed with salt, ground black pepper, wine and crushed garlic, stuffed into natural pig or beef gut, and both ends are tied with hemp string. It is aged in the production area; the single document names no duration. It does say that cold winters shaped by the Sibylline Mountains benefit the ageing and how long the product keeps.

The area covers communes in the provinces of Ancona, Macerata and Ascoli Piceno. After the earthquakes of 26 and 30 October 2016, producers were allowed for 12 months to make ciauscolo outside it.

The stick is soft to the touch, the slice pink and even, with no rancidity; the smell delicate and spicy; the taste gently savoury, never acid. It weighs 400 g to 2.5 kg, 4.5–10 cm across.

If you spread pâté or a soft spreadable sausage on toast, you know the idea, but ciauscolo is an aged salami. What sets it apart from Salame Felino and Salame Cremona is the very fine mince, the softness and the fat: 32–42 %. Finocchiona smells of fennel, which ciauscolo does not use.

The label reads «CIAUSCOLO» in clear, indelible letters, then «Indicazione Geografica Protetta» and IGP or the logo. At an Italian deli or in the chilled aisle, it is sold whole or sliced, vacuum-packed or in modified atmosphere.

Why this matters to you: do not try to slice ciauscolo thin like other Salami; the single document says outright that it is spread on bread. Among Italy's dry-cured sausages it is a rare case where a butter knife beats a slicer.