Welsh Mountain Pancetta

Description

Pancetta is made from the belly, a rich, flavoursome and totally underrated cut. From medieval times, belly was regarded as ‘economical peasant fare’ and therefore discarded as a scrap from the top table. Later, ‘breast’, as it became known, enjoyed a renaissance as meat became more expensive and there were many more mouths to feed. It was generally boned, rolled and stuffed with a range of fillers and other tasty morsels such as fruits and nuts; breast being good at carrying flavour, each national tradition added their own particular twist. One of the most distinctive sheep breeds on the British isles, the black Welsh Mountains arrived with the Vikings from c.900CE. Their characteristics diverge from our other native breeds in that they are exceptionally hardy and well-suited to upland grazing. They’re able to thrive on sparse or rough pasture and prized for high-quality, flavoursome meat, a firm favourite at the royal court from medieval times and greatly important economically. This is where we come in. Building on our enormous success with our single-breed artisan charcuterie, we set about to find a use for the oft discarded belly, after all it does represent 12% of the carcass and it's too good to chuck! The Welsh hills are famous for the abundance and variety of wild herbs and plants that, like the sheep, have successfully adapted to rocky, wind-swept and somewhat inhospitable terrain. The pancetta we’ve made echoes with the animals’ natural habitat, as the herbs we’ve used mirror the range of wild ones upon which they graze on the mountainside. Our pancetta incorporates minty notes redolent of the vibrant prunella, the woody richness of wild thyme and citrusy textures of rue and sorrel, to name a few. We finish the pancetta by lightly smoking over Welsh oak and curing it to mirror the age-old farmhouse kitchen techniques used to preserve meat. Bringing the best of British charcuterie to your table!