The Food Museum & Suffolk Salami presents: Lamb Salami

Last month, The Food Museum partnered with Suffolk Salami to create our very first salami, now available in the shop and soon to be centre stage in the café’s new grazing boards. Our salami puts a unique twist on traditional Italian pork varieties, being made from the lambs reared on site, larded with diced pork fat and flavoured with rosemary.

The beauty of learning to make a food product from scratch is in the lessons we gain along the way—not just about production, but also about history and geography.

Here’s what we discovered:

 Before humans settled down to farm, we were nomads, relying on foraging and hunting. Domesticating livestock provided a more stable food supply and led to the need for preserving food, especially for winter. Curing meat became essential for extending the shelf life of perishable products, allowing people to store food, reduce hunting trips, and settle for longer periods.

Curing meat is simple: it requires salt, air exposure, and time. Salting the meat draws out water, desiccating it. Cured meats can be enhanced with spices, wines, nuts, diced pork fat, and other flavourings. Salami takes this further by encasing the meat in a natural casing made from livestock intestines or, nowadays, an artificial casing made from collagen. This casing acts as a barrier against contaminants. Although mold might grow on the surface, it doesn’t penetrate the meat. The meat is left to ferment and then to dry for 6-10 weeks, depending on conditions and desired flavour. Slice into it, and you’ll find a red-brown circle studded with pearly white beads.

The word “salami” comes from the Latin salumen, originating from sale, meaning salt. While salami is part of many Eastern and Central European food cultures, it’s most predominant in Southern Europe, where the dry, sunny climate of Italy, Spain, and Portugal is ideal for curing meat. Historically, salami and cured meats were favoured by peasants as a reliable source of protein and fat. Today, salami is enjoyed worldwide, especially in countries with large Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and German communities.

A lamb salami might seem unusual, but here at the museum, we believe in making the most of what’s locally available. Our lamb salami experiment turned out to be a huge success, resulting in a cured meat that’s delicate, pleasantly fatty, and deliciously savoury. If this piques your interest, we invite you to sample our salami, along with many other local and seasonal goods, at the Bone Building in the heart of our property.