Italian Cured Meats and Sausages

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By Alastair Little and Richard Whittington

Published 1998

About

Italy is the source of a huge range of delicious cured meats (salumi), eaten traditionally as antipasti, a cold appetiser before the obligatory pasta course. There are dozens of different salami, including Felino, Napoli, Milano, Toscani and Coppa, the latter made exclusively from the fore-shank of the pig.

Different areas produce different kinds of cured sausages. Bologna, for example, is the home of mortadella, a large, delicately flavoured sausage, its smooth pink cut surface studded with milk-white fat. Pancetta is a national pleasure, a superior unsmoked bacon, essential for so many cooked dishes, that can also be eaten raw like Parma ham.

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Global Kitchen Glossary