I’ve been away from Italy for a little over a month. I’m missing it. I miss going to the itty-bitty supermarket and seeing a huge wall stacked with all sorts of cured meats, bounded on one side by racks of all sorts of bread.
Here in northern California, I go to a huge supermarket. It offers a couple kinds of commercial salami, the typical hard, dry salami and the “spicy” pepperoni. If I go to a big city, I can get a few other types. That’s it. But I do get to choose between 47 different kinds of toilet paper, an advantage that those unfortunate people in Italy can’t even imagine. Wait, neither can I…
Anyway, in Sericciolo, a town of a few thousand people that got bombed to near extinction in the big war, I can go to the little Supermarket and get maybe 25 kinds of cured meat products. I don’t think I’ve exhausted the choices.
What I’m getting at here is that there is a whole new world of “chopped up pig stuffed into a bladder and let to dry” out there. If you’ve never been to an Italian market you don’t know the half of it. Go to a different region and you’ll see a whole ‘nuther array of different porky products. It’s fun.
But, to taste, you need to shop. So try this: on your next trip to Italy rent a house somewhere and shop for your meals. It’s not that hard. In fact, I’m starting a little series that offers you some information, pictures, and audio so you can procure a bundle of your favorite—or what looks like your favorite—salami or other Italian specialties.
Here’s the first: Buying Salami
Enjoy.