Italian meat-lovers' mouths are watering after health officials greenlighted the return of the 'real' version of Florence's famed T-bone steak.
Farmers' association Confagricoltura said Thursday that a government panel had raised the age limit for cattle providing off-the-bone meat from 24 to 30 months.
"This means T-bone lovers will savour the true taste of the Fiorentina steak, which has traditionally come from older animals," Confagricoltura said.
"These last 20 months have really only been a foretaste of the real McCoy," it said, referring to the lifting of a five-year European Union ban last year.
The famed Fiorentina was the most famous victim of the EU's mad cow crisis.
It became legal again on New Year's Day 2006 - almost five years after a March 2001 EU ban on beef off the bone.
The return of the Fiorentina - craved by traditional foodies and die-hard carnivores in Italy and abroad - has already been a bonanza for restaurants and butchers.
Before the ban the cut accounted for 5% of Italy's meat consumption.
"But now the real feast will begin," Confagricoltura said.
A whopping cut off the bone, the Fiorentina is typically flash-grilled to leave a blood-dripping, succulent and almost raw centre.
The squeamish can always ask for it to be left a bit longer on the grill.
The mad cow emergency is a distant memory and stiff new safeguards have been set in place along the food-industry chain.
Tuscan steak butcher and poet Dario Cecchini grabbed headlines worldwide when he staged the Fiorentina's funeral in February 2001.
Mourning fans came from as far as Russia and Japan to snap up the last legal Fiorentinas, auctioned off by Cecchini for charity.
Cecchini, who sings the joys of meat in Tuscan dialect poetry, composed a lament for the last steak as it was interred near his shop.
