This evening I dined in a restaurant whose first menu entry for antipasto was a dish called Elogio del Porco, which roughly translates to ‘Plaudit to the pork.’ Although generally eaten as antipasto, salumi–or cold cuts–are a selection of cured meats often known also as "affettati misti" that can be enjoyed freely at any point of the meal. Salumi span a wide assortment of (generally) pork-based cured meats, and for a clear definition of salumi all you really have to do is eat some handsomely folded in a warm bread roll. Like this.
My favorite specialty store to visit (much more than a jeweler or a haute couture boutique) is a salumeria, a local Italian deli. This especially when I’m in Rome’s centro storico, the central old part of the city, where the Roman deli is commonly called a pizzicheria, presided over by a pizzicagnolo, an artisan managing a sharp slicer, fragrant specialties and palatable delights. Another name for this exquisite little shop of wonders is Norcineria (from the town of Norcia, renowned for its cured meats), where the person behind the counter is a Norcino. Gastronomia or Alimentari–other ways of calling a salumeria–are places where one can also purchase a wide range of prepared gastronomy items, from salads to pre-cooked dishes, dry goods and canned delicacies.
Whatever the name, the smell in the store is divine and the arrangement of cheeses and cold cuts is a work of art, balance, and efficiently creative use of space. When the salumeria is strategically located next door to a fornaio, there is no way out: purchase some warm bread, slice it open and fold in some freshly cut cheese or cured meat, or a mix of both, and enjoy your life then and there. When you are done, crumbs littering your chest and smile widening on your face, you can walk another few steps to the nearest bar and get yourself un caffé.
Some of the distinctive cold cuts that fall under the generic domain of Salumi are porco-based, but not all. There are hundreds of types of salumi found in Italy, some of the most popular are:
Bresaola
Bresaola is salt-cured beef with spices, a typical product from the Alpine valley Valtellina. Usually served finely sliced, and seasoned with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and lemon juice. Some like to add flakes of Parmigiano. I personally serve mine dribbled with pink grapefruit slices, olive oil, freshly ground black pepper and a little arugula.
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Culatello
This lean and rosy, refined variety of raw prosciutto ham, is made with a fraction of the normal cut nearest to the pig’s rump. The name refers in fact to the animal’s culo, a vernacular term for ‘rear end.’ Universally considered superior, aged culatello has a clean, delicate flavor. It is highly prized and priced, but worth every penny it’s worth.
°°°
Finocchiona
This is a variation on salami that supposedly owes its origins to a thief who, at a fair held in a small town in the province of Prato, decided to steal a fresh salami and then hide it in a bushel of wild fennel. When he returned for it he discovered it had absorbed the aromas of its hiding place and had become a delicacy fit for the Gods.
°°°
Galantina
Galantina is a bizarre meatloaf (for want of a better term) made from boned poultry that is stuffed with ground meat, hard boiled eggs, ham, truffles and other diced ingredients, pressed into a cylindrical shape, sown shut and poached in an aspic-producing stock. The galantina is sliced thinly and served cold, coated with the aspic.
°°°
Lardo
The word translates as lard, and that’s what this is, thick fat with some thin streaks of pink meat, cured with herbs, pepper, and salt. The best-known Italian lard is from the town of Colonnata, which is a small village perched on a ridge between two marble quarries in the Apuane Mountains above Carrara (the place where Michelangelo went to shop raw material for his sculptures).
Lardo can be used as a flavoring ingredient in other dishes (thinly sliced and wrapped around a filet mignon, for example), but if it’s very good quality, it's best served as is, thinly sliced with plain toasted bread. If your cholesterol count can take it, this is one of the finest affettati around.
Rendered lard that's used for cooking as a shortening, is called strutto, and looks like a white paste.
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Lonza
A cold cut made from de-boned pork shoulder end, trimmed of fat, slipped into a casing, and–like almost all Italian affettati–salted and air-cured with herbs and spices, as one might do with prosciutto. Its one of the leanest cold cuts available, and rather delicately flavored. Capocollo, as it sometimes also called, can on occasion be marinated in wine. In either case, it is aged, though not allowed to harden. Very tasty.
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Mortadella
A precooked and highly seasoned sausage the size of my den. Mortadella is also known as Mortadella di Bologna, the signature cold cut of the city.
Mortadella is a cooked salumi, made from pork meat that's been ground in a mortar, and stuffed in a casing with peppercorns, pistachio nuts and cubes of pink fat. The popular bologna sausage is usually sliced and served as a sandwich filler or part of the antipasto misto platter. I usually have my pizzicagnolo carve a thick 1-inch slice and then cube it. I place the cubes in small bowls scattered around the house and nibble them during mid morning housework. And mortadella rules stuffed in warm pizza bianca.
°°°
‘Nduja
This is a soft, spreadable Calabrian sausage ground with tons of spicy red pepper, which lends a bold red color and a fiery flavor. The best way to enjoy 'nduja is scooping it out of the casing with a spoon, softening it further over mild heat, and dipping bread or veggies into it.
°°°
Pancetta
Dry cured pork's stomach meat. Pancia means abdomen, pancetta is also the affectionate name for the sexy pot-belly. Pancetta is made from the same cut used to make bacon. However, it's not smoked, and there's no sugar in the curing process.
Pancetta is almost always used as an ingredient in other dishes, providing flavor. Recipes such as Amatriciana and Carbonara often contain pancetta as a substitute for Guanciale, which is much more difficult to find outside of Italy.
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Porchetta di Ariccia
Porchetta in the town of Ariccia is an institution, and no fair or festive gathering would be complete without it. Porchetta is commonly served in the town’s many typical fraschette, local informal dining establishments where paper tablecloths and abundant fares are synonyms of quality. In general, porchetta is made from a young pig weighing no less than 20 kg (45 lbs). And indeed the Ariccia trademark porchetta looks very much like a cliché banquet prop from a Roman epic blockbuster. Fact is the Romans were great fans of porchetta, which has traveled through time and landed on our tables virtually unchanged from the one Nero ate during his orgies.
The ingredients are the same, a large boned and bound pig with an apple in its mouth, salt, pepper, garlic and herbs among which wild fennel or rosemary, depending on the Norcino who assembled it. The pork is spit roasted and served sliced, enjoyed with warm Genzano bread and abundant vino dei Castelli which is a table wine made in and around Frascati.
°°°
Prosciutto
The Italian word for ham is Prosciutto. In this case dry-cured ham, which has not been cooked. Italians call it simply prosciutto, short for prosciutto crudo, which means "raw." Prosciutto is a specialty of northern Italy, the signature Prosciutto di Parma and Prosciutto di San Daniele, are the sweetest, loveliest, melt-in-your-mouth hams in the universe.
°°°
Prosciutto Cotto
Cotto means ‘cooked,’ and this what this ham is, the kind you purchase in a deli as a cold cut. Once boned and trimmed, the pork legs are cured in salt, water and fine spiced brines that impart the cooked hams their typical aroma. The pork legs are then put in special molds to be cooked in steam ovens. The ones to choose from the myriad available on the market are the hams containing no gluten, milk proteins, phosphates, or MSG. Sometimes prosciutto cotto is also roasted, a process that provides a delicately sophisticated flavor.
°°°
Salame
The large sausages made with ground pork and cubes of fat, all seasoned with salt, spices and garlic which are then stuffed into a pig's intestine casing are the common definition for salame. Like prosciutto crudo, Italian salame is raw*, with the meat being cured by the salt in the spice mix. Salame piccante, has red peppers in it mixture. In the United States it’s known as pepperoni, and for some unknown reason it commonly garnishes pizza! The town of Felino, just outside of Parma, in the Emilia Romagna region, is famed for its namesake salame Felino. Then there’s Salame Milano, a popular standard whose pork fat is finely ground; and there’s Cacciatorino, which means 'little hunter,' and indeed tiny he is. Corallina has 3 squared chunks of white fat in the middle of the otherwise fairly lean slice. Ungherese is lightly smoked and ambrosial in sandwiches. So you see, calling it simply salami is an oversimplification.
°°°
Soppressata, or Coppa
This is a sausage made primarily from leftover pork cuttings–cartilage, snippets of meat, and so on, which are stuffed into the skin of the animal, or a burlap sac, and cooked. The taste and texture are rather particular; people generally make sure their guests like it before offering it.
°°°
Speck
Speck is a salt-cured and cold-smoked ham of the Südtirol, or Alto Adige. Despite the inroads of mechanization and the food industry, the production of Speck remains quite artisanal and has recently obtained IGP status, which means it can only be made in the Südtirol and only following time-honored production techniques. No shortcuts allowed, for example speeding the curing by injecting brine. It’s commonly served as antipasto, and also contributes subtle nuances when used as an ingredient, in say, pasta sauces.
°°°
My favorite specialty store to visit (much more than a jeweler or a haute couture boutique) is a salumeria, a local Italian deli. This especially when I’m in Rome’s centro storico, the central old part of the city, where the Roman deli is commonly called a pizzicheria, presided over by a pizzicagnolo, an artisan managing a sharp slicer, fragrant specialties and palatable delights. Another name for this exquisite little shop of wonders is Norcineria (from the town of Norcia, renowned for its cured meats), where the person behind the counter is a Norcino. Gastronomia or Alimentari–other ways of calling a salumeria–are places where one can also purchase a wide range of prepared gastronomy items, from salads to pre-cooked dishes, dry goods and canned delicacies.
Whatever the name, the smell in the store is divine and the arrangement of cheeses and cold cuts is a work of art, balance, and efficiently creative use of space. When the salumeria is strategically located next door to a fornaio, there is no way out: purchase some warm bread, slice it open and fold in some freshly cut cheese or cured meat, or a mix of both, and enjoy your life then and there. When you are done, crumbs littering your chest and smile widening on your face, you can walk another few steps to the nearest bar and get yourself un caffé.
Some of the distinctive cold cuts that fall under the generic domain of Salumi are porco-based, but not all. There are hundreds of types of salumi found in Italy, some of the most popular are:
Bresaola
Bresaola is salt-cured beef with spices, a typical product from the Alpine valley Valtellina. Usually served finely sliced, and seasoned with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and lemon juice. Some like to add flakes of Parmigiano. I personally serve mine dribbled with pink grapefruit slices, olive oil, freshly ground black pepper and a little arugula.
°°°This lean and rosy, refined variety of raw prosciutto ham, is made with a fraction of the normal cut nearest to the pig’s rump. The name refers in fact to the animal’s culo, a vernacular term for ‘rear end.’ Universally considered superior, aged culatello has a clean, delicate flavor. It is highly prized and priced, but worth every penny it’s worth.
°°°This is a variation on salami that supposedly owes its origins to a thief who, at a fair held in a small town in the province of Prato, decided to steal a fresh salami and then hide it in a bushel of wild fennel. When he returned for it he discovered it had absorbed the aromas of its hiding place and had become a delicacy fit for the Gods.
°°°Galantina
Galantina is a bizarre meatloaf (for want of a better term) made from boned poultry that is stuffed with ground meat, hard boiled eggs, ham, truffles and other diced ingredients, pressed into a cylindrical shape, sown shut and poached in an aspic-producing stock. The galantina is sliced thinly and served cold, coated with the aspic.
°°°The word translates as lard, and that’s what this is, thick fat with some thin streaks of pink meat, cured with herbs, pepper, and salt. The best-known Italian lard is from the town of Colonnata, which is a small village perched on a ridge between two marble quarries in the Apuane Mountains above Carrara (the place where Michelangelo went to shop raw material for his sculptures).
Lardo can be used as a flavoring ingredient in other dishes (thinly sliced and wrapped around a filet mignon, for example), but if it’s very good quality, it's best served as is, thinly sliced with plain toasted bread. If your cholesterol count can take it, this is one of the finest affettati around.
Rendered lard that's used for cooking as a shortening, is called strutto, and looks like a white paste.
°°°A cold cut made from de-boned pork shoulder end, trimmed of fat, slipped into a casing, and–like almost all Italian affettati–salted and air-cured with herbs and spices, as one might do with prosciutto. Its one of the leanest cold cuts available, and rather delicately flavored. Capocollo, as it sometimes also called, can on occasion be marinated in wine. In either case, it is aged, though not allowed to harden. Very tasty.
°°°A precooked and highly seasoned sausage the size of my den. Mortadella is also known as Mortadella di Bologna, the signature cold cut of the city.
Mortadella is a cooked salumi, made from pork meat that's been ground in a mortar, and stuffed in a casing with peppercorns, pistachio nuts and cubes of pink fat. The popular bologna sausage is usually sliced and served as a sandwich filler or part of the antipasto misto platter. I usually have my pizzicagnolo carve a thick 1-inch slice and then cube it. I place the cubes in small bowls scattered around the house and nibble them during mid morning housework. And mortadella rules stuffed in warm pizza bianca.
°°°This is a soft, spreadable Calabrian sausage ground with tons of spicy red pepper, which lends a bold red color and a fiery flavor. The best way to enjoy 'nduja is scooping it out of the casing with a spoon, softening it further over mild heat, and dipping bread or veggies into it.
°°°Dry cured pork's stomach meat. Pancia means abdomen, pancetta is also the affectionate name for the sexy pot-belly. Pancetta is made from the same cut used to make bacon. However, it's not smoked, and there's no sugar in the curing process.
Pancetta is almost always used as an ingredient in other dishes, providing flavor. Recipes such as Amatriciana and Carbonara often contain pancetta as a substitute for Guanciale, which is much more difficult to find outside of Italy.
°°°Porchetta in the town of Ariccia is an institution, and no fair or festive gathering would be complete without it. Porchetta is commonly served in the town’s many typical fraschette, local informal dining establishments where paper tablecloths and abundant fares are synonyms of quality. In general, porchetta is made from a young pig weighing no less than 20 kg (45 lbs). And indeed the Ariccia trademark porchetta looks very much like a cliché banquet prop from a Roman epic blockbuster. Fact is the Romans were great fans of porchetta, which has traveled through time and landed on our tables virtually unchanged from the one Nero ate during his orgies.
The ingredients are the same, a large boned and bound pig with an apple in its mouth, salt, pepper, garlic and herbs among which wild fennel or rosemary, depending on the Norcino who assembled it. The pork is spit roasted and served sliced, enjoyed with warm Genzano bread and abundant vino dei Castelli which is a table wine made in and around Frascati.
°°°The Italian word for ham is Prosciutto. In this case dry-cured ham, which has not been cooked. Italians call it simply prosciutto, short for prosciutto crudo, which means "raw." Prosciutto is a specialty of northern Italy, the signature Prosciutto di Parma and Prosciutto di San Daniele, are the sweetest, loveliest, melt-in-your-mouth hams in the universe.
°°°Cotto means ‘cooked,’ and this what this ham is, the kind you purchase in a deli as a cold cut. Once boned and trimmed, the pork legs are cured in salt, water and fine spiced brines that impart the cooked hams their typical aroma. The pork legs are then put in special molds to be cooked in steam ovens. The ones to choose from the myriad available on the market are the hams containing no gluten, milk proteins, phosphates, or MSG. Sometimes prosciutto cotto is also roasted, a process that provides a delicately sophisticated flavor.
°°°The large sausages made with ground pork and cubes of fat, all seasoned with salt, spices and garlic which are then stuffed into a pig's intestine casing are the common definition for salame. Like prosciutto crudo, Italian salame is raw*, with the meat being cured by the salt in the spice mix. Salame piccante, has red peppers in it mixture. In the United States it’s known as pepperoni, and for some unknown reason it commonly garnishes pizza! The town of Felino, just outside of Parma, in the Emilia Romagna region, is famed for its namesake salame Felino. Then there’s Salame Milano, a popular standard whose pork fat is finely ground; and there’s Cacciatorino, which means 'little hunter,' and indeed tiny he is. Corallina has 3 squared chunks of white fat in the middle of the otherwise fairly lean slice. Ungherese is lightly smoked and ambrosial in sandwiches. So you see, calling it simply salami is an oversimplification.
°°°This is a sausage made primarily from leftover pork cuttings–cartilage, snippets of meat, and so on, which are stuffed into the skin of the animal, or a burlap sac, and cooked. The taste and texture are rather particular; people generally make sure their guests like it before offering it.
°°°Speck is a salt-cured and cold-smoked ham of the Südtirol, or Alto Adige. Despite the inroads of mechanization and the food industry, the production of Speck remains quite artisanal and has recently obtained IGP status, which means it can only be made in the Südtirol and only following time-honored production techniques. No shortcuts allowed, for example speeding the curing by injecting brine. It’s commonly served as antipasto, and also contributes subtle nuances when used as an ingredient, in say, pasta sauces.
°°°
Plaudit to the pork, then. I agree.
*Trichinosis, you wonder? The disease caused by trichinae, typically from infected meat, especially pork, characterized by digestive disturbance, fever, and muscular rigidity? It’s virtually unknown in Italy. The salt and the aging process guarantees salumi and other pork-based cold cuts to be a safe food because the salt ties up all the water, making it impossible for any form of bacteria to grow.
Images courtesy of NovelliSalumi.it, Buttalapasta.it, Sorrentino.it
