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Mortadella

Mortadella, a type of salami, is a finely hashed/ground heat-cured pork sausage which incorporates at least 15% small cubes of pork fat (principally the hard fat from the neck of the pig). It is delicately flavored with spices (including black pepper, whole corns or ground, myrtle berries, nutmeg and coriander) and typically pieces of pistachio nuts. Traditionally the pork filling was ground to a paste using a large mortar (mortaio) and pestle. Two Roman funerary stele in the archaeological museum of Bologna show such mortars. Alternatively, according to Cortelazzo and Zolli Dizionario Etimologico della Lingua Italiana 1979-88, Mortadella gets its name from a Roman sausage flavored with myrtle in place of pepper. The Romans called the sausage farcimen mirtatum. Anna del Conte (The Gastronomy of Italy 2001) found a sausage mentioned in a document of the official body of meat preservers in Bologna dated 1376, that may be mortadella.

Mortadella originated in Bologna, the capital of Emilia-Romagna; elsewhere in Italy it may be made either in the Bolognese manner or in a distinctively local style. The mortadella of Prato is a Tuscan speciality flavoured with pounded garlic. The mortadella of Amatrice, high in the Apennines of northern Lazio, is unusual in being lightly smoked.

This mortadella has Protected Geographical Indication status under European Union Law. The zone of production is extensive: as well as Emilia-Romagna and the neighbouring regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Marche and Tuscany it includes Lazio and the Province of Trento.

A similar commercial product, called "bologna" and often omitting the cubes of pork fat, is popular in the United States. It is also known as polony in the United Kingdom.

"Mortadela" is also very popular in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, thanks to the large number of Italian immigrants established in these countries in the early 20th century. The normal spelling in these countries, however, is "Mortadela".

It is also very popular in Spain, where a variety with pepper and olives is widely consumed, especially in sandwiches. Sometimes, the standard mortadella is referred to as "Mortadela italiana" ("Italian mortadella"), because there's a local variant named "Catalana" or "Catalan mortadella" It's also popular in Iran, albeit usually made with beef or lamb, and called martadella or, more commonly, "cawlbawss" (compare Hungarian kolbász, from Turkish külbastı).

• Istituto per Valorizzazione dei Salumi: Mortadella (in English)
• Clifford A. Wright, "Sausage Peddlers, Vagabonds, and Bandits: Part 1": types of Italian sausage
• Carlo Cantoni and Patrizia Cattaneo, "La mortadella: aspetti attuali tecnici della sua produzione" (in Italian)
• Mortadella di Bologna (in Italian)