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Italy bans cultivated meat products
(www.chemistryworld.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Italian parma ham and such is quite famous and Italians seem to take their authentic cuisine very seriously. Supposedly there afraid that low quality fake meat will overrun the current market. I imagine the meet industry there is quite powerful though so assume lobbying was part of this.
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Holsteiner Katenschinken also allows the pigs to be from anywhere, but the whole curing process has to be done in Schleswig-Holstein. They could've went ahead and said that the origin of the pigs is crucial to its quality and very likely gotten away with it, but they didn't want to -- Danish pigs are cheap and plentiful.
That Parma doesn't mandate that all the curing needs to be done there is their own fucking fault and probably greed -- of big producers, that is, more interested in cheap labour than protecting local jobs.
Honestly I wouldn't be terribly surprised if in the future you'd see lab-grown DOP Katenschinken -- the stuff has always been about the specific curing method, enabled by our microclimate. The strict ingredient and process regulations will continue (including mandating that a lot of stuff needs to be done by hand) but if synthetic raw ham achieves a quality to what they're using now heck why not.
Side note: Carbonara with Holsteiner Katenschinken and Holsteiner Tilsiter is way better than with guanciale/pancetta and pecorino. Also show me a charcoal maker who can afford fancy import ingredients, fancy local ingredients are just fine. As long as they don't include cream, that is.
It's like saying that fish and chips is better using shrimps. Its not the same anymore, it may be better, but not a carbonara.
Shrimps are not fish. Holsteiner Katenschinken is cured pig, Holsteiner Tilsiter is cheese.
Also, no, your argument is completely invalid for another reason: guanciale/pancetta and pecorino was not how the dish was created: It was created by half-starving Italians trading GIs for their ham and cheese provisions, then adding egg and pasta. Only after that, after they truly and actually ate carbonara made with of all things American ham and processed cheese, after the economy had recovered, did Italians nerd out as usual and decide on what would be the best type of meat and cheese to use for the recipe -- but, fatally, they did not know about Holstein DOP products, they restricted their search to Italy. And that's how they made, and continue to make, the grave mistake of thinking they found the ultimate meat and cheese for carbonara. Or rather two of them you can't even agree among yourselves, one will deny that a carbonara can be made with pancetta, another that it can be made with guanciale.
Next up let me tell you about my recipe for Ragout Bolognese which I can just as well call Bourguignon, depending on which nation I want to argue with today. No to only a tiny bit of tomato, btw (depending on the acidity of the wine).
What is today a traditional carbonara? Eggs, guanciale, pecorino, Pepper, salt, water, pasta (and not all kind of paste)
Then if you want to male variation, better for you.
In my country we fight between cities about what is a Focaccia pomodoro mozzarella Pizzetta Pizza rossa
And they are all basically the same.
BTW we use guanciale for the very high fat content , what you are using is lower in fat, it looks like speck, different flavor
The Tilsiter makes up for the lack of fat, up to 60% of dry weight, pecorino tends to be way more lean. Speck Alto Adige is, in German taxonomy, not actually Speck but Schinken: Speck is a cut of skin with underlying tissue, both pancetta and guanciale qualify, while Schinken is prosciutto: Hind leg. Someone must've hit the Tyrolians over the head.
Taste-wise Katenschinken is quite different from anything you get in Italy, it's not really about spices (which aren't set but tend to include pepper and juniper) but cold smoking in a cold and wet climate.
I forgot pepper in the traditional recipe, the Schinken already comes with it and with its strong flavour combined with the strong flavour from Tilsiter adding more really isn't necessary, but I also wouldn't complain. A bit of thyme can make the whole thing a bit less heavy but definitely don't overdo it. Also the butcher might've used it in his spice mix.
And yes I'm completely fine with calling it Carbonara allo Holstein, and Latium gets the privilege of using "del". But it is a carbonara and I'm winning to die on that mountain. Oh, another argument in favour: Making it with cream instead of egg turns out way worse, unlike with the cheeses Tyrolians to at least Swabians produce which work better with cream. As such calling it carbonara is a necessity: So that you can complain when people use cream :)
Which means if they allowed cultured meat then surely there gonna be companies trying to find the maximum legal allowed they can add to call it parma.
Honestly, i am a big fan of proper tasting cruelty free labgrown meat and i cant wait till it gets cheap. I Believe quality might succeed what the average consumer can get now. I am just putting myself in the hide of a conservative Italian lawmaker per exercise.
Since Italians take the authenticity of foods so seriously, Prosciutto di Parma and many other foods are already protected by DOP designation.