Does parma ham count as raw?

[maxscan]

I'm going on holiday to Italy in a couple of weeks time and I am trying to think about what I can eat over there to stay as close to raw as possible. There will be plenty of raw fruit & veg and it should be possible to get unpasteurised cheeses however I'm a bit stuck on meat without knowing the source... Then I thought what about parma ham? Real parma ham is dry cured over a couple of years in a cool environment so passes the temperature test but not sure about the salting - is it acceptable as a raw food alternative or would I be better of passing on it?

[Susan]

The pigs which provide parma ham are fed with barley, oat and with whey resting from the production of Parmesan cheese. This isn't the natural food of pigs.   

Before drying the meat is anoint with salt, another point which parma ham makes useless for raw nutrition.

[King Salmon]

You can always go for the Carpacio

[TylerDurden]

Raw meat is difficult to get hold of in Italy, as they have not enough herds available. It's usually expensive, despite it being almost wholly grainfed. I have had some success with raw horsemeat(bought from a horse-butchers', a "cavalheria"), and given that its taste is far superior to the grainfed beef I get elsewhere, I'm fairly certain it's of a high standard re grassfed issues. Besides, it's much cheaper than the grainfed beef I get elsewhere.

Parma ham is a processed food given the salt(thought the temperature was rather high, though I may be mistaken) but, anyway, it's better than a microwave-ready meal and similiar.

Seafood is bloody expensive in Italy as the Mediterranean is way overfished, unfortunately. Pity as it's an easy source of raw wild animals, as such.My ghastly local fish-market likes to up the prices by as much as 30 euros per kilo when the tourists start coming in in May.

My options, currently, are to get a driving-licence so that I can go up into the Ligurian hills where there are still some impoverished peasants with flocks of goats and the like(they can't afford to feed them on grains, so they have the best nutrition). I figure that buying 1 whole goat-carcass from them every time I'm on holiday would sort things out. I'll have to learn a bit more Italian, too.

[King Salmon]

Tyler,I didn't know you were in Italy.I'm planning to be in Ancona sometime in the middle of September for a week or two.Parlo un poco italiano.Studio italiano due mesi ma posso parlare francese.Ciao.

[maxscan]

Fair point about the salt and yes, will definitely be eating carpaccio when I find it! 

My family is Italian (mum from a little village near Venice, dad from Palermo) so I've been over there a fair bit but this will be my first time 'raw' - didn't realise that about the beef so thanks for the heads up! It's a real shame though - my parents are convinced of the fact that food in Italy is of the highest quality but I wonder if they're thinking back to their childhoods before they came over to the UK in the 70s - certainly the cooked food is great by cooked food standards and fruit & veg is generally of a much higher quality than the UK but I think that's down to the amount of sun. Whenever I talk to them about food quality they refuse to accept that anything in Italy could be raised badly...

That said, I was in Palermo in May for the first time in years (profile photo is in the botanic gardens - not that you can see much!) and we were wandering around the markets - they go on literally for miles winding through the side streets - stall after stall of seafood, meat, fruit & veg - I'm sure I could find something in there!

Tyler whereabouts do you stay in Italy? I'm not really familiar with Liguria, have spent most time in Veneto and Friulli but also some time in Rome & Sicily. King Salmon - spent a week in Le Marche inland from Ancona - absolutely beautiful countryside - are you staying in Ancona itself?

[TylerDurden]

Tyler whereabouts do you stay in Italy? I'm not really familiar with Liguria, have spent most time in Veneto and Friulli but also some time in Rome & Sicily. King Salmon - spent a week in Le Marche inland from Ancona - absolutely beautiful countryside - are you staying in Ancona itself?

 I have a holiday villa c.3-5 km near  the western French border, right on the coast. The nearest town is Ventimiglia. Liguria is very scenic with some lovely, wild green hills behind the coast. And, due to strict planning laws, there are none of those masses of hotels on the beaches like you find in France.

[maxscan]

Cool! I went skiing some years back in Limone and since then I've always fancied the coast along there as a perfect spot for a holiday home as you are really near the mountains but also the sea there is supposed to be good & clean.

Where my mum's family are from you're about 45 minutes from a beach (Lignano) but it's the Adriatic so it's a very green sea and often quite dirty, and the drive up to the mountains takes a good couple of hours... (though they're the Dolomites and breathtakingly beautiful)

What made you choose Liguria? Have you travelled much around the rest of Italy?

[TylerDurden]

Cool! I went skiing some years back in Limone and since then I've always fancied the coast along there as a perfect spot for a holiday home as you are really near the mountains but also the sea there is supposed to be good & clean.

Where my mum's family are from you're about 45 minutes from a beach (Lignano) but it's the Adriatic so it's a very green sea and often quite dirty, and the drive up to the mountains takes a good couple of hours... (though they're the Dolomites and breathtakingly beautiful)

What made you choose Liguria? Have you travelled much around the rest of Italy?

I didn't choose it. The villa was bought by my grandmother in the 1950s. Not only am I able to swim down below, but, like you said, I have the mountains to visit as well. Only went once to Limone during childhood, it's not that big a place - I go more often to visit the very beautiful Vallees des Merveilles which is on the road to Limone from Ventimiglia within the French border as it juts into Italy(technically part of Italy but the French stole it in the 19th century).

Haven't seen much of Italy, other than that. I used to travel by car from Vienna to Ventimiglia so got to see Venice and Mantua in passing on the way and those lovely Dolomite mountains, but not much else.

[TylerDurden]

Oh, just saw a post of yours I missed when abroad in July. You asked re farmers' markets. The best ones in London are from the www.lfm.org.uk website. They have a markets map showing the nearest ones to Kingston etc. Those LFM markets are semi-organic(not all stalls are organic but those that aren't don't spray their fruit etc., they just can't always afford to convert to official organic status).

[maxscan]

It sounds like your grandmother picked a perfect spot! I love the mountains - got into them via skiing / snowboarding but it's the space and scale that brings me back every year, just so good for your head space and makes you feel glad to be alive. The sea has a similar effect on me though unfortunately I've had several ear surgeries since age 13 and I can't really get them wet so it's difficult to fully appreciate - before that happened you couldn't get me out of the water.

Vienna to Ventimiglia - that's quite a drive, though as you say some pretty spectacular scenery on the way. As you go further south in Italy the landscape really changes and it has a different feel about it, especially from Rome down. By the time you get to Sicily it's like you've gone back in time 100 years and you're in North Africa, very different flora & fauna. A really nice country for a road trip or a long train journey...

Thanks for the LFM tip by the way, had a look at the website and will definitely check out the Twickenham & Wimbledon ones - I've tried Borough Market but I think I'd need a 2nd job to shop there regularly!

[TylerDurden]

Borough market is an obscenely expensive tourist trap. It's only really good on the 3rd Saturday of each month when the most stalls appear. Still, it was one of the very few places I was able to get raw shark from. I wish I lived right next to Billingsgate market. That seafood market, however, is only open from something like 2am to 5am , last I checked(so impossible to reach via the Tube etc.) and I think it's meant only for restaurant-owners and the like who buy in bulk.

[raw-al]

Guys you're makin me jealous! 

I drove from Venisio to  a place in Croatia about 8 years ago. Narrow roads, but no cracks in the pavement and everyone drives like a maniac  . Grocery stores were interesting, lots of cheese and pasta. The countryside was gorgeous and we ate some figs off a tree. I had no idea what they were till my friend told me. Fun to see a part of Europe.