Saint Marcel is a small town situated in the mountains high up in the Aosta Valley. Here the water is extremely pure and the air is fresh and healthy. A very rare mineral can be found here: a purple variety of pyroxene which used to be mined here and is now a focus of interest for geology scholars from all over the world.

The Aosta Valley has many examples of frescoes dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. In one of them you can clearly see depicted a leg of ham. Once upon a time, the only ‘ham’ known in the region was bear meat, reserved only for the very highest echelons of the local aristocracy.

In Saint Marcel, as in other Alpine towns, local families used to rear pigs for their personal consumption. Every family produced different types of cured pork: sanguinaccio (made with the blood of the pig and either bread or potatoes); capicollo (made with the meat around the neck and shoulder); sausages and salami. In order to have a stock of food for the winter months, the fat and meat from the pig were processed very simply and preserved with salt and herbs. Some families also produced a raw ham (prosciutto) flavoured with mountain herbs and which had a very distinctive flavour.