Lucanica Explained

Lucanica was a rustic pork sausage in ancient Roman cuisine.Apicius documents it as a spicy, smoked beef or pork sausage originally from Lucania;^[1] according to Cicero and Martial, it was brought by Roman soldiers from Lucania.^{[2] [3]}

It has given its name to a variety of sausages (fresh, cured, and smoked) in Mediterranean cuisine and its colonial offshoots, including:

• Italian luganega or lucanica
• Portuguese and Brazilian linguiça
• Bulgarian lukanka or loukanka
• Macedonian (Western dialects) lukanec/луканец or lukanci/луканци
• Albanian (Arbëresh community in Italy) likëngë or lekëngë, also llukanik in Albania.
• Greek loukaniko, a fresh sausage usually flavored with orange peel
• Spanish, Latin American and Philippine longaniza, a name which covers both fresh and cured sausages
• Arabic laqāniq, naqāniq, or maqāniq, made of mutton and some semolina^{[4] [5]}
• Modern Hebrew naqniq (נקניק), an umbrella term for 'sausage'
• Basque lukainka
• Croatian luganiga, flavored with cinnamon

Today, lucanica is identified as lucanica di Picerno, produced in Basilicata (whose territory was part of the ancient Lucania).^[6]

See also

• Luganega

Notes and References

1. Book: Jenkins, Nancy . 16 . Cucina del sole : a celebration of southern Italian cooking . 2007 . William Morrow . 978-0-06-072343-9 . 6 July 2024.
2. [Oxford Companion to Food]
3. Touring Club Italiano Le città dell'olio, 2001, Touring Editore pag. 237
4. [Maxime Rodinson]
5. For the phonetic variation, see Dulaym ibn Masʻūd Qaḥṭānī, Sound changes in Arabic sonorant consonants (not seen)
6. Web site: The Lucanica di Picerno, A Historical Sausage. September 16, 2020. Arte Cibo.