Mortadella Bologna

Two etymologies compete over the origin of this speciality. The first derives the word mortadella from murtatum or myrtatum, that is, from myrtle, whose berries the Romans used to spice their sausages before black pepper became common. This is the more linguistically probable hypothesis: murtatum becomes murtata, then mortadella via the Italian diminutive. The second derives its name from mortarium, the mortar in which the meat was pounded. It rests on two funerary stelae of the Roman period held in the Archaeological Museum of Bologna, one of which depicts seven pigs and the other a mortar with its pestle. This hypothesis is defended by Giancarlo Susini, a historian of antiquity at the University of Bologna.

The origins of the product are associated with the territories of ancient Etruscan Felsina (on the site of the city of Bologna), covered in oak woods that supplied acorns for pig-rearing. In the fifteenth century, the Visconti of Milan offered Bologna a fattened ox each year in exchange for perfumed mortadelle, a documented exchange attesting to the product's commercial value at that time. In 1661, Cardinal Girolamo Farnese laid down the rules for the preparation of this salume by edict. The Arte dei Salaroli (the old guild of charcuterie craftsmen of Bologna), whose arms had borne a mortar and pestle since 1376, was charged with manufacturing it and applying the guarantee seals. This edict precedes the modern systems of geographical protection by several centuries.

Dry-air oven cooking is the decisive step of the recipe. The absence of humidity is indispensable: steam cooking would melt the lardelli and alter the paste's colour. A large-format industrial mortadella can thus remain in the oven for more than two days. The lardelli, visible at the cut as regular white points on a pink ground, keep their shape only if the core temperature is controlled.

It is eaten cold, thinly sliced, on bread or with crescentine, the small fried breads of Bologna. An expression fixes the way mortadella ought to be sliced: affettare la mortadella a velo, in very thin slices, literally ‘veil slices’. It also enters the filling of the Bolognese tortellino: the official recipe, registered in 1974 by the Confraternita del Tortellino, counts it among the three meat ingredients of the ripieno (the filling), alongside pork lombo and prosciutto crudo. In 1971, Mario Monicelli directed La mortadella (international title: Lady Liberty), a film in which Sophia Loren plays a young Italian woman who is refused entry to the United States for carrying a mortadella and decides to eat it on the spot in front of the officers. The scene reflects a documented reality: the American prohibition on importing Italian pork products, instituted because of the risk of swine vesicular disease. The mortadella and the prosciutto di Parma benefited from a first partial lifting in 1987; most other Italian salumi were authorised for import only from 2013. The mortadella Bologna PGI, obtained in 1998, protects the name, but the worldwide spread of the term ‘bologna’, designating an industrial luncheon meat unrelated to the original, has diluted the designation. Production under the PGI amounts to some 40,000 tonnes a year, about a third of total Italian production.