Every year, during the first ten days of May, the Festival de la Coppiette is held in the town of Marcellina, about thirty kilometers northeast of Rome, in the province of Lazio. Organized by the Committee of the Butteri (mountain shepherds), it reflects simultaneous celebrations dedicated to the Madonna del Ginestre. However, the committee is less concerned with the hunger of the soul and more with the stomach.
Coppiettes are dried strips of meat, cured with salt and pepper and then seasoned with fennel and pepperoncino (Italian hot chili peppers). Southeast of Rome, in the province of Frosinone, locals include garlic and white wine to make coppiette ciociare. This is a simple meal and was part of the staple diet enjoyed in the past by both farmers and humble peasants. He has some close relatives. Coppiette would have been interpreted as unequal by the pioneers who opened up the American West in the 19th century, and by the native Indians the settlers encountered. The Dutch voortrekkers (literally meaning front marksmen) who made the great trek across South Africa to escape the British in the 1830s and 1840s relied on something strikingly similar: they called it biltong.
It is not difficult to understand its appeal. These dried meats are rich in protein and residual fat. They also have high levels of salt added during the drying process to inhibit any bacterial activity. The Lazian farm worker, tired and hydrated after a day in the field, munched on coppiette and was quickly revived with a concentrated shot of energy and nutrients. These ‘sticks’ of meat were reduced to almost nothing in his pocket; they were also intrinsically stable because all excess oil and moisture had been removed. Nestled in the dark corners of a backpack or pocket, they can last for days or even months.
Then and now, the raw material with which the sausage is made depends on the place. Cowboys and Native Americans cut strips of beef and game species, including buffalo, deer, and elk. In South Africa, biltong made from beef remains the most common variety available, but today the Afrikaaner also uses ostrich and game species such as kudu, wildebeest and gazelle. In the Lazio region of Italy, the horse and donkey were the common options available. Today, most coppiettes are made from pork.
However, with their aversion to pork, the Jewish community makes its own version with beef. A good butcher could sell you some coppiette with meat from the prestigious Maremmana, a breed of cattle bred in the Maremma, a former swampy area that straddles southern Tuscany and northern Lazio. If you visit the small town of Genzano, the residents can offer you their own rare specialty with donkey meat.
In times past, no part of the animal was wasted; today’s butchers, and those who still do it at home, focus on the fibrous muscle tissue that surrounds the ham, shoulder or abdomen. Strips 10-15 centimeters long and 2 centimeters thick are cut from the body and seasoned in wooden vats, before gently cooking them for half an hour in a refractory brick oven fed with firewood. The excess water is drained off and the meat is baked for another half hour before being left to dry for up to 48 hours in wire cages.
Coppiette, like its South African relative biltong, differs from jerky in this respect. While the latter is dried in the sun or over a fire, the more traditional biltong and coppiette are air-dried in the cold winter months. Lazio makes its specialty throughout the year and in other months it follows the jerky method and employs a special drying room. In both cases, the dried meat is tied with string in pairs, or coppiette (meaning ‘little couples’) and left to mature for two months. After a very light final smoking, the finished product is bagged or packed in trays ready for sale in taverns, butchers and wine shops.
