Biroldo (Tuscan Blood and Head Sausage)

Biroldo is the dark, spiced head-and-blood sausage of the Garfagnana, the mountain valley north of Lucca in Tuscany. A pig’s head is boiled until the meat falls off, picked, chopped, bound with a little blood and seasoned hard with wild fennel, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon and star anise; the mixture goes into a wide casing — traditionally the pig’s stomach or bladder — is boiled again, then cooled under a weight so the excess fat presses out. It is eaten cold, sliced, with chestnut bread.

The diagnostic detail is that it is a head cheese and a blood sausage at the same time: the gelatin from the head sets it like a terrine, the blood darkens and binds it, and the fennel-led spice mix is what makes it taste of Tuscany rather than of Germany. The older people of the valley called it the food of hard times; it is now a Slow Food Presidium, made from October to April and almost all eaten locally.

US law bars lungs from food, so the lung some old recipes include is left out. Use blood from a licensed source. I have not made this one yet; it is built from the Slow Food Presidium description and standard head-cheese practice, and it is untested.

Ingredients

MEAT (cooked first)

• 1 pig’s head, about 4–5 kg (9–11 lb), split, brain removed, cleaned — or 2 kg pork jowl + 1 kg pork hock + 500 g pork skin
• 1 pork tongue (about 400 g) and 1 pork heart (about 300 g) — optional
• 1 onion, 1 carrot, 2 bay leaves and 10 g salt per litre of water, for the pot

BINDER AND SEASONING (per 2.2 kg cooked meat)

• 300 ml (1¼ cups) fresh pork blood, from a licensed source
• 33 g fine salt (about 1.5% of the mix — the head was cooked in salted water)
• 6 g ground black pepper
• 8 g wild fennel seed, lightly toasted and ground (or fennel seed plus a pinch of fennel pollen)
• 2 g ground nutmeg
• 1 g ground cloves
• 2 g ground cinnamon
• 1 g ground star anise
• 1 clove garlic, grated — optional

CASING

• 1 cleaned pork stomach, or 1 pork bladder, or a 90–110 mm fibrous casing / beef bung

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper · Cinnamon

1. In the collection: the head’s gelatin and the fennel. In the collection this sits between Pressed Pig’s Head Terrine (Head Cheese) and the blood sausages; it is both.
2. Cook the head: cover with cold water, add aromatics and salt, bring to a simmer and hold gently for 3 hours, until the meat lifts off the bone with no resistance. Add tongue and heart for the last 1½ hours. A rolling boil makes the meat stringy and clouds the stock.
3. Pick warm: lift out, cool just enough to handle, and pull all meat, fat and skin from the bones while warm — cold head meat sets and will not release. Peel the tongue. Weigh what you have.
4. Chop: cut into 1–1.5 cm pieces; mince the skin finer. Keep roughly two parts meat to one part fat and skin; discard excess hard fat. Biroldo should be chunky, not ground.
5. Season and bind: while the meat is still warm (about 40 °C), mix in the salt, spices and blood. The blood should coat and darken the meat, not pool. Taste a cooked spoonful (microwave it 20 seconds): this is your only chance to adjust.
6. Fill: pack into the stomach, bladder or bung firmly but not drum-tight, sew or tie shut, and prick a few times.
7. Cook again: lower into water at 85 °C (185 °F) and hold just below a simmer for 3 hours (about 2 hours in a 100 mm fibrous casing). Probe the centre: 71 °C (160 °F) minimum. A rolling boil bursts a stomach.
8. Press: lay on a tray between two boards with 3–4 kg on top, let it cool at room temperature no more than 2 hours, then press overnight in the fridge. Pressing pushes out fat and sets a tight, sliceable round.
9. Serve cold: sliced thin, with chestnut bread, crusty bread or warm polenta. Keeps a week refrigerated.
10. Sibling: Sanguinaccio (Italian Blood Sausage), the softer, bread-bound Italian blood sausage.

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Backbone: the Slow Food Foundation’s Garfagnana Biroldo Presidium — lean pig’s head deboned after about three hours’ boiling, a little blood, salt, pepper and spices (wild fennel first, then nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and star anise), packed into casings, boiled another three hours, cooled slowly in open air and pressed under a weight so some of the fat drips out; sliced, often with Garfagnana chestnut bread or potato bread; made October to April. Other Garfagnana descriptions use the stomach or bladder (buzzetto) as the casing, give about four hours for the second boil, and list lungs, tongue and other offal with the head. Deviations: (1) no lung (US law, 9 CFR 310.16, bars livestock lungs from food); (2) quantities, which the Presidium does not publish, are this recipe’s own; (3) a core temperature and a cooling limit. Untested.

Where biroldo came from. The Garfagnana and the Lucca hills, slaughter-season food from the parts of the pig that do not keep. Slow Food records that the elderly once rejected it as poor food eaten during the hard times; younger producers revived it, and about 90% of production is eaten in the valley.

The name. The etymology is not documented in the sources read. Italian sources file it as the Tuscan branch of sanguinaccio, alongside mallegato (the Pisan and San Miniato blood sausage, with raisins and pine nuts).

Variations. Sweet biroldo with raisins and pine nuts (closer to mallegato). A version with more blood and less head meat, stuffed in a narrow casing and eaten hot. Some households add a little Parmigiano or garlic.

Sourcing and gear. Whole pig’s heads come from local processors and Asian or Hispanic butchers; ask for it split and cleaned. A stockpot of at least 16 litres. Pork blood frozen, labelled for human consumption. Two cutting boards and something heavy for pressing.

Still open. The Presidium’s spice proportions are not published. Whether the traditional second cook is at a full boil or below one is not stated; this recipe holds it below a boil.

Read more on the site. Blood, Liver, Head and Offal