Lamb and Mutton of Romagna

This brand guarantees that every step of the life of this cattle, up to the selling, follows the Q.C. specifications.

This meat is natural, of excellent taste, highly nutritional.

The best in flavour and taste is offered by the mutton (‘Castrato’), i.e. the young lamb butchered at 5 months of age with a weight of about 60/80 kgs, breeded in the pasture together with the sheep with a special feeding of cereals and corn. The raw meat has a bright colour with white stripes of fat; after the cooking the meat is tender with a strong and pleasant taste.

‘Agnellone’ is the commercial term for the sheep butchered between 70 and 180 days of age, whose meat is pink or dark pnk, with white fat.

History

The breeding of the sheep has a long tradition in this part of the country: visiting sheperds, after the transhumance, used to give the local people some boars as a gift, to thank them for the hospitality.

These males were of different breeds, ‘Bergamasca’, ‘Biellese’, ‘Appenninica’: they were first gelded, and then fattened, to be used as a meat supply in wintertime, and usually butchered at the beginnin of the summer.

Gelding was necessary to avoid the sharp taste of the adult male but also to allow them to pasture together with the rest of the flock.

From 1709 tables of rates show the presence of mutton together with lambs and kids.

Area of production

The hilly region of Romagna has been always specially suitable for sheep breeding and the production of meat and cheese.

The most important breeds are the ‘Appenninica’ (an aboriginal one) and the ‘Sarda’, brought in by the Sardinian farmers in the second half of 20th century, together with the ‘Biellese’ and the ‘Bergamasca’ arrived with the visiting sheperds.

In the kitchen

The finest parts of the mutton, used in the local cooking, are: the haunch, grilled or in the oven; the loin, roasted; chops, deep fried; shoulder, for kebab and stew.

The mutton chop, flavoured with onion and spices, is also grilled with ripe cherry tomatoes.