Mortadella

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Mortadella

Mortadella with pistachios

Mortadella with olives from Portugal

Mortadella pronounced /morta'dɛl:a/ is an Italian cold cut (salume) made of finely hashed/ground heat-cured pork sausage which incorporates at least 15% small cubes of pork fat (principally the hard fat from the neck of the pig). It is delicately flavored with spices, including whole or ground black pepper, myrtle berries, nutmeg, and coriander.

Traditionally the pork filling was ground to a paste using a large mortar (mortaio) and pestle. Two Roman funerary stele in the archaeological museum of Bologna show such mortars. Alternatively, according to Cortelazzo and Zolli Dizionario Etimologico della Lingua Italiana 1979-88, Mortadella gets its name from a Roman sausage flavored with myrtle in place of pepper.

The Romans called the sausage farcimen mirtatum. Anna del Conte (The Gastronomy of Italy 2001) found a sausage mentioned in a document of the official body of meat preservers in Bologna dated 1376 that may be mortadella.

Mortadella originated in Bologna, the capital of Emilia-Romagna; elsewhere in Italy it may be made either in the Bolognese manner or in a distinctively local style. The mortadella of Prato is a Tuscan speciality flavoured with pounded garlic. The mortadella of Amatrice, high in the Apennines of northern Lazio, is unusual in being lightly smoked.

Mortadella Bologna has Protected Geographical Indication status under European Union Law. The zone of production is extensive: as well as Emilia-Romagna and the neighbouring regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Marche and Tuscany, it includes Lazio and Trentino.

The Italian politician Romano Prodi, prime minister and former President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004, lives in Bologna (but he was born in Reggio Emilia) and is usually nicknamed "Mortadella" by the Italian press because of his origin and presumed resemblance to the pale pink sausage.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Abroad

A similar commercial product that omits the cubes of pork fat, called bologna, is popular in the United States. It is also known as polony in the United Kingdom.

It is very popular in Spain and Portugal, where a variety with pepper and olives is widely consumed, especially in sandwiches. Sometimes, in Spain, the standard mortadella is referred to as Mortadela italiana ("Italian mortadella"), because there's a local variant named Catalana or "Catalan mortadella".

In Lebanon, it is known by the same name, Mortadella, and is available in pork, beef, chicken and turkey, both imported from Italy and locally made. A variety with pepper and olives is also very popular.

Mortadella is also very popular in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, thanks to the large number of Italian immigrants established in these countries in the early 20th century. The normal spelling in these countries, however, is mortadela.

In several Arab and Muslim countries, like the UAE, Qatar and Egypt, Halal mortadella is sold, which is made from chicken, beef, or turkey.

It's also popular in Iran, albeit usually made with beef or lamb, and called martadella or, more commonly, cawlbawss (compare Polish kiełbasa', Hungarian kolbász, from Turkish külbastı).