This cold cut is typical of the city of Bologna, in the region of Emilia Romagna. This noble and rich delicacy is so identified with the city, in fact, that sometimes it can be called with the name Bologna.
Since 1600
The origins of this food are very much ancient. In the Archaeological Museum of Bologna, there is a Roman stele with a scene depicting seven pigs and a mortar with pestle (the tool used to mix the minced pork meat with spices added for flavor). The name of the food itself could come from this special mortar, or perhaps from the Latin word mortarum (that indicated the minced meat mixed with myrtle, used to add flavor to the meat and also to cover the intense taste of the meat of pigs raised wildly in the woods).
The mortadella, as we know it, has a specific day of birth: October 24th 1661, when the cardinal Girolamo Farnese published a document that stated strict rules to produce luxury cold cuts such as this (that at the time was more expensive than prosciutto), in order to fight against imitations.
In the document, it was strictly forbidden to use meat other than pork, and no one but the expert of the Compagnia dei Salaroli (association of producers of salt) could prepare mortadella
Bolognese lies
The first Bolognese producers of mortadella had to tell lie after lie to defend their products from imitators. When a foreigner asked about the meat used to make it, they would sometimes state that it was beef, or young donkeys, so that these curious travelers would go home and try to reproduce the flavor using an incorrect meat. But the truth is that the real mortadella from Bologna is only made with pork.
The right wine
Great are the Lambrusco from Emilia Romagna, or the Grignolino d’Asti and Barbera (both from Piedmont). In Rome, mortadella is consumed as a snack in the middle of the morning, between two warm slices of focaccia bread. In this case, the best is a white wine from Castelli Romani.
