COOK ITALIA!
Years back, driving through customs, it was common practice for Italian immigrants returning from their annual summer visit to the home country to discreetly conceal half a dozen salumi under the blankets of sleeping children in the back seat of the car. The risk of confiscation and a fine was deemed acceptable. Even today, for most Italians living abroad, the dream of a canopy of aging salumi hanging from the rafters in the cantina can be just that: a dream.
Salume (pl. salumi) is the generic name for all salted and cured meat products. They’re officially made in a salumificio and sold in a salumeria. (Unofficially they’re made in a neighbour’s kitchen.) But salume isn’t just salami and Parma ham. There are over 600 different types of salume and 100 types of cured ham produced the length of the peninsula. Which is the best depends ultimately on questions of taste, climate, quality of ingredients, means of production and provincial loyalty – the latter being akin to supporting your local football team. (For me, it’s my neighbour’s.) My point is that when Italians discuss the subject of salume (a surprisingly popular topic of conversation) they can be talking about, among others, cured ham (prosciutto crudo), coppa, pancetta, guanciale, lardo, culatello, speck, mortadella, bresaola and capocollo… And, within each type, there is a seemingly infinite variety.