Explore "Siglino" (Smoked Pork from Mani-Southern Greece)

God I love Mani, my mother's birthplace. This region lies to the southern part of Peloponnesus just 3 hours distance from Athens. My brother and me went there every summer with our grandma Theodora and stayed for two months. Two amazing months! Now that I have kids I realize what a hero she was managing the two of our cousins and us.

The red hat girl in this photo is I.

Mani is an “open museum”. It combines innumerable historical monuments with the glorious natural beauty of its wild landscape. And the cuisine of Mani is something else!

The traditional diet of Mani is considered to be of a high nutritional value and has a lot of elements that experts highlight as necessary for the maintenance of a good health. Mani produces a priceless gustatory range, which can be, tasted through traditional local products, like olives, olive oil, honey, pasteli, diples, sweets with stewed fruit, mizithra, hilopites and SIGLINO.

SIGLINO is salted pork (you’ll find it as “pasto” throughout the southern Peloponnese), which dries salted, and then smoked for many hours with a fire of green sage. This ancient way of preserving meat was used in Greece before the days of electricity and refrigeration and creates tender, tasty, and long-lasting pork. In Mani locals usually eat this cut into thin slices with fresh oranges cut in half. I sauté siglino (cut in cubes) and add it in my -scrambled eggs- mix, or my pancakes mixture.

It is not easy to find...i know. But if you visit Mani (Southern Greece) don't forget to taste it and buy some on your way back home.

Go Mediterranean and Google "Mani Greece". A perfect place for Family Holidays. And let me know if you need any help.