Characterization of the aromatic profile for the authentication and differentiation of typical Italian dry-sausages

In order to chacterize two kinds of typical Italian dry-sausages, namely “Salame Mantovano” and “Salame Cremonese”, the volatile composition was determined for seven samples of “Salame Mantovano” and for five samples of “Salame Cremonese”. The study was performed by the dynamic headspace extraction technique (DHS) coupled with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Among the 104 volatiles identified, terpenes, aldehydes, ketones and alcohols represented the most abundant compounds. Peak area data for all the substances from the above mentioned group was used for statistical purposes. Firstly, principal component analysis (PCA) was carried out in order to visualize data trends and to detect possible clusters within samples. Then, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was performed in order to detect the volatile compounds able to differentiate the two kinds of sausages investigated. The data obtained by GC–MS shows that the most important contributions to the differentiation of the two kinds of typical Italian salami were seven volatile compounds, i.e. 3-methylbutanal, 6-camphenol, dimethyl disulfide, 1-propene-3,3′-thiobis, ethyl propanoate, 1,4-p-menthadiene and 2,6-dimethyl-1,3,5,7-octatetraene. Prediction ability of the calculated model was estimated to be 100% by the “leave-one-out” cross-validation.