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PGI — Corsica
Grilled over holm oak embers, served piping hot with steaming pulenda and the morning's fresh brocciu — figatellu is a charcuterie of the moment, a winter ritual, a taste like nothing else on earth.
Charcuterie speciality from Corsica, PGI (IGP) since 2023.
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The figatellu — figatelli in the plural, from the Corsican ficatu, liver — was born of the most solemn ritual in Corsican peasant life: u macellatu, the pig slaughter. Every autumn, as soon as the first frosts descended from the mountains, families would gather to slaughter the pig fattened throughout the year: from island self-sufficiency arose a preservation know-how handed down from generation to generation, in which nothing of the pig was wasted.
The liver, heart and lean trimmings — everything that could not otherwise be kept for long — were minced, seasoned with salt, pepper, crushed garlic and maquis herbs, then stuffed into a natural casing. The result: a thick, U-shaped liver sausage, hung immediately above the fucone — the traditional open hearth — to be smoked for up to several days over local hardwood: oak, chestnut, beech, strawberry tree or heather.
This living, ephemeral product, bound to cold and smoke, has become the symbol of Corsican winter charcuterie — the island's quintessential speciality, whose reputation has long extended beyond Corsica's two départements. Grilled over embers with a slice of pulenda (chestnut-flour cake) and fresh brocciu, it makes up one of the most iconic meals of the Corsican mountain table.
The figatellu exists in two very distinct forms, the confusion of which easily misleads the uninitiated:
The fresh figatellu is the winter version, and the most authentic. Made from November to March, it keeps for only a few weeks. It is eaten exclusively cooked — grilled over embers, pan-fried, or oven-baked — never raw. Its flesh remains tender, its skin golden and glistening beneath the heat, its interior pink and juicy once cooked through to the centre.
The dried figatellu (also sold under the name fitone) has dried slowly in the curing shed, until losing at least 20% of its weight. Its skin wrinkles, its moisture content plummets, and its aromatic concentration deepens. It can then be thinly sliced and enjoyed raw, like a saucisson — though this remains strictly reserved for pieces that have undergone sufficient, controlled drying.
The official recognition of figatellu as a European PGI was registered by the European Commission on 26 July 2023, following years of efforts spearheaded by the Cunsorziu di i Salamaghji Corsi — the Consortium des Salaisonniers Corses, founded on 17 March 2009 by nine family-run charcuterie businesses on the island (ten today). This PGI was granted simultaneously to four Corsican charcuteries: Figatelli, Bulagna, Pancetta and Saucisson sec de l'Île de Beauté. It complements the PDO (AOP) designations already obtained by Coppa, Lonzu and Jambon sec de Corse (Prisuttu), bringing the number of Corsican charcuteries protected by a European label to seven.
The figatellu stands out from all other Corsican charcuteries through its composition based on pork liver. The PGI specifications require a liver proportion of between 30 and 50% of the mix: the higher this share, the darker the product's colour tends towards black. The liver is supplemented by jowl fat, mandatory at a minimum of 25% of the mix to give the product its characteristic crispness, lean meat and heart — some artisans also add other offal, such as spleen or tongue, in keeping with their family traditions.
The mandatory seasoning is limited to fine salt and black pepper, the latter incorporated at between 2 and 6 g/kg: originally used as an insect repellent in a warm climate, pepper has become one of the most distinctive aromatic hallmarks of figatellu. The specifications additionally permit sugars, spices, aromatics, wine and starter cultures; in practice, crushed garlic and red wine are standard customs depending on the artisan. Each charcutier jealously guards their proportions.
the liver and other cuts are sorted, trimmed, and cut into regular pieces by hand or using a coarse mincer.
all ingredients are mixed, seasoned, then left to rest for a few hours in the cold so that the flavours develop.
the mixture is pushed into natural pork casings, forming the characteristic U-shaped sausage, tied at each end.
Appearance
U-shaped sausage, uneven amber-to-brown exterior colour resulting from smoking
Colour when sliced
Alternating burgundy-to-brown and white grains, increasingly dark the higher the proportion of liver
Aroma
Complex: initially smoky and peppery, followed by cured meat and liver
Taste
Powerful, liver, a precise balance between salt, cured meat and fat, pronounced peppery note, lingering smoky flavour
Texture
Heterogeneous — firmness from the meat grains, melting richness from the liver, jowl fat alternating between melting and crisp
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The traditional tasting of figatellu is a simple and unforgettable winter ritual. Over glowing red embers — or, failing an open fireplace, about twenty minutes in the oven at 200°C, pricked with a fork — the figatelli are laid out until the skin is nicely golden and the inside cooked through. They are served piping hot, cut into thick rounds, on a warm slice of pulenda (chestnut-flour cake), alongside fresh brocciu and lamb's lettuce. A drizzle of Corsican honey over the cheese, a glass of Patrimonio rouge (Nielluccio) or Ajaccio rouge (Sciacarello) — and the meal is complete, in all its ruggedness and generosity.
Figatellu features in numerous Corsican dishes: l'omelette au figatellu, a classic rustic dish, and lentils or white beans with figatellu — the classic alternative to pulenda when chestnut flour is not to hand. As an apéritif, sliced dried figatellu makes an admirable replacement for saucisson on Corsican charcuterie boards.
Fresh figatellu must never be eaten raw or pink. Its pork liver content makes it susceptible to harbouring the hepatitis E virus (HEV), the liver being the primary organ in which it concentrates: approximately 40% of hepatitis E patients in France are heavy consumers of this charcuterie, and up to half of commercially bought figatelli can carry it according to researchers from Marseille. Cooking thoroughly to the centre completely eliminates this risk by killing the virus. Eating it raw, culturally practised in certain Corsican families, remains inadvisable — particularly for pregnant women.
Since: 2023
Area covered: Corse-du-Sud (2A) + Haute-Corse (2B)
Key requirements: 30 to 50% pork liver in the mix, min. 25% jowl, smoked with Corsican hardwood (softwood excluded)
Association
Family-run
Family-run
Artisan
Artisan
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The Jean-Paul Vincensini et Fils farm describes itself as a breeder and processor of Corsican-breed pigs for more than 40 years, in San-Lurenzu, Haute-Corse. It produces its charcuterie — prisuttu, coppa, lonzu and saucisson sec — under the PDO (AOP), using organic farming methods.
It also offers organic terrines available in several recipes (chestnut, figatellu, fig and walnut, cured ham, myrtle, hazelnut and muscat, wild boar, veal, olive), as well as jams, honeys, cakes and canistrelli, vinegars and chestnut flour, all certified organic.
| Address | Lieu-dit Rebbia, route de Coïbiti, 20244 San-Lorenzo, France |
| 04 95 47 15 45 | |
| contact@vincensini.fr | |
| corse-bio.fr | |
|
All production is certified organic, since 2005. |
