Casa Rago - Salumi di Suino Nero Lucano (charcuterie made with Lucano Black Pig meat)
Casa Rago is an artisanal charcuterie company that produces cured meats with meat from Suino Nero Lucano pigs.
A project that started with just 5 heads of Suino Nero Lucano, a local breed of excellence in Italian gastronomy close to extinction, whose valorization and rediscovery is the focus of the company's work.
It is based in the countryside of Miglionico, a small town nestled in the unspoiled countryside of Basilicata just a few kilometers from Matera.
As far as pig farming is concerned, the diet is based on cereals grown on the farm, then supplemented by the natural products of the undergrowth that the pigs are free to feed on during their lives, which take place totally outdoors. Healthy living and controlled, wholesome nutrition make it possible to obtain the exquisite meats that the wisdom of the Rago family has been processing and transforming into unique cured meats since 1930.
At the genetic level, the Suino Nero Lucano has rustic characteristics, understood as resistance to disease, adaptation to climatic conditions and inclination to grazing, a factor that makes it suitable for extensive rearing in the wild.
The slow growth (animals are in no case slaughtered before 12 months of age) and diet allows the animals to develop a portion of unsaturated fats rich in omega 3, which create an enveloping flavor from an organoleptic point of view.
Products
The culture of cured meats in Basilicata is one of Italy's most important gastronomic heritages. Lucaniga was a cured meat already known and appreciated by the Romans, Marcus Gavio Apicius in 25 BC speaks of it as a sausage from Lucania very similar to what is known today as sausage. Even today the term lucanega (i.e., from Lucania) is synonymous with sausage throughout Italy.
The Rago company produces various types of traditional salumi salami, soppressate, rolled and stretched pancette, capocollo, and a very special seasoned sausage called the pezzente, a Slow Food Presidium of the Matera hills.
To these classic products in the repertoire of Lucanian cured meats Casa Rago has added a new range of cured meats in particular cooked given the excellent aptitude of the meat of Suino Nero Lucano (Lucanian Black Pig) to absorb aromas in long cooking, while maintaining unchanged the principles of production oriented toward craftsmanship and genuineness.