PGI protection for European meat products
Brussels has added to its register of protected geographical indications (PGI): Portugal’s Cabrito do Alentejo goat meat (of the Serpentina breed) and sheep meat Cordeiro Mirandês/Canhono Mirandês (of the Churra Galega Mirandesa breed); and Slovenia’s Kraška panceta traditional dried pork meat product.
Cabrito do Alentejo is supposedly low in fat and very tender, due to its southern Portugal home’s rugged climate and sparse vegetation. The sheep meat is, said a European Commission note, “pink, extremely tender, succulent and very tasty, with very little marbling of muscle and fat”, on account of its north-east Portugal mountain farmers feeding their livestock only grass and stubble.
Kraška panceta is made on the Slovenia-Italy border from lean bacon and has a characteristic rectangular shape, and a minimum weight of 2.2kg. It is dried with the skin and without ribs using only sea salt, becoming elastic and pink in colour with creamy white fat, with a “full, harmonic aroma and a sweet, non-salty flavour”, said the Commission.
