| Headword | Zampone Modena |
| Domain and subdomain | Food – meat products |
| Grammatical label | Noun, sing. |
| Definition | Sausage obtained from a mixture of meat and pork rind, variously flavoured and inserted in a pig’s paw, to be consumed boiled. (1) |
| Note | Zampone Modena PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) is obtained from carefully selected pork meat combined with rind, according to the dictates of the ancient recipe. The ground meat can be delicately flavoured with pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and wine. The dough is then stuffed into a natural casing, the skin of the pig’s forefoot, tied to the upper end, as tradition dictates. (2) Zampone is the classic dish served on the New Year’s Eve dinner. This link between Zampone and Christmas and New Year’s Eve originates from the typically peasant tradition of sacrificing pork from the day of Saint Lucia (13th December). […] Zampone has always been considered a particularly valuable product. Its use was then limited to holidays only, accompanied by the equally valuable lentils. The presence of Zampone on nobles’ tables is confirmed by some traditional recipes according to which it should have been served with zabaione, a typical Italian cream that, given its ingredients – eggs, sugar, liqueur wine -, was intended only for the tables of privileged people. (3) |
| Context | Towards the end of the 18th century in the collective gastronomic imaginary the Zampone Modena replaced (together with the equally famous Cotechino) the yellow sausage which had already made Modena famous during the Renaissance. The 1800 consecrated the large-scale success of the product, as evidenced by the writings of the Roman Gastronome Vincent Agnoletti and numerous literary testimonies. (4) |
| Phonetic transcription | [tsam’pone ‘mᴐ:dena] |
| Synonyms/variants | ND |
| Etymology | Aumentative of “zampa”, Eng. paw [probably a mix between zanca and gamba]. (5) |
| Product image |  (6) |
| Equivalents | ITA Zampone Modena ESP Zampone Módena FRA Zampone Modena RO Zampone Modena |
| Note of the equivalent | In Italian, the term is masculine. The Italian term is used in different languages |
| Institution | Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Culturali |
| Date of the card | 29/07/2021 |
| Last modified | 25/04/2023 |
| Author Revisor | Chiara Buschi Gloria Zanella |
| Sources | 1) AA. VV., Dizionario di enogastronomia in cinque lingue, Academia Universa Press – Edizioni Plan, Milano, 2012; 2) https://www.modenaigp.it/la-lavorazione-dello-zampone-modena-igp/ 3) https://www.modenaigp.it/i-nostri-prodotti/zampone-modena-igp/la-storia/ 4) https://www.modenaigp.it/the-history-of-zampone-modena-igp/?lang=en 5) https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/ricerca/zampa/ 6) https://www.modenaigp.it/it/product/zampone-modena-igp/ |
