CHARACTERIZATION OF “SA PANADA” TRADITIONAL MEAT PRODUCT OF MONTE ACUTO

Panada is a traditional food product of Monte Acuto area (Sardinia, Italy). It is made of an envelope of pasta filled with pork meat and fat and then thoroughly cooked. In this study a microbiological and sensorial characterization was carried out on Panada samples taken in 5 plants. In each plant from two batches were collected samples of raw and cooked products which were also analyzed after 7 and 30 days of storage. Further samples were packaged after cooking in modified atmosphere (MAP, N2 70% and CO2 30%) and analyzed after 30 days. The results of microbiological analysis of Panada cooked products showed scarce contaminations at very low level during storage and none of the pathogens were recovered from these samples. With respect to the sensorial analysis, the results showed that undesirable changes in the characteristics of the product were perceived after 7 days storage. Sensory evaluation showed that MAP packaged product did not retain better characteristics than control samples after 30 days of storage.