BUY ITALIA!

1 ITALIAN Cured meat products made predominantly from are the subject of this month’s taste test. A particularly Italian speciality, this is a wide and varied church…

alumi, which is the plural form of salume, are salted meats, and take their name from the basic process by which meats could be kept in the Sdays before refrigeration – or even today in places where refrigeration is either inconvenient or expensive: ie, by preserving them with salt. Technically, it’s not quite the same thing as salami, which is the plural form of salame, though in another sense it is… Correctly speaking, salami is a subset of salumi, which explains why we have a couple of examples here. But salumi includes many other products, such as , speck, colatello, coppa, , ‘nduja, , and even mortadella, which is 2 cooked, and , which is made from beef. The term salumi is, in short, not far from the French, and by extension British, concept of charcuterie. All of which means we have quite a variety of products on our pages this month, from capocollo to raw prosciutto, from Tuscan, fennel-fl avoured, salami to Calabrian ‘nduja, one of the rising stars of British-Italian cooking. Indeed, ‘nduja is something to be trying now, if you haven’t already, before the celebrity chefs start using it on the telly shows and the prices go up…

IOZZO CAPOCOLLO From delicibo TOR www.delicibo.com I ’S D Price £12.50/500g E C

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I capocollo was the one our tasters T couldn’t get enough of this month. Capocollo, sometimes also known as coppa, comes – as 1 UNEARTHED 2 VALLEBONA the name suggests – from the ITALIAN PROSCIUTTO SALAME neck of the pig, and this example is CRUDO FINOCCHIONA about as good as it gets. The clear, From Ocado TOSCANA well-defi ned grain of the product, www.ocado.com From Vallebona with strong distinction between the Price £2.19/75g www.vallebona.co.uk fl esh and the fat, is a good indication Not the best you can buy, and Price £3.84/100g of its quality. It cuts as well as it we’d use it to complement Good salami should be lean, looks, and it tastes sublime, other fl avours rather than on not greasy; the lipid content soft in texture yet full of its own. Unearthed (www. should balance the fl avour of taste and fl avour. discoverunearthed.com) the meat, not drown it. You The casing and the suggest trying this with should be able to eat it with string that ties it marinated artichokes and sun- your fi ngers without having together are all dried tomatoes, or wrapping to resort to a serviette every natural. (It isn’t it around sage and chicken time you take a mouthful. spelled wrong – strips to make chicken This product satisfi es all those apparently ‘capicollo’ (literally ‘jump in requirements, and delivers is the preferred spelling mouth’). Contains pork, salt with fl avour too, expertly in Canada.) and natural preservatives. enhanced with fennel seeds. VERDICT ★★★★★ VERDICT ★★★ VERDICT ★★★★★ This typically Calabrian speciality is prized throughout An honest and naturally Another delicious, top , and this import is an exceptional example. made product. Good value quality product. Try it with for your supermarket money. grilled aubergines.

84 ITALIA! June 2014

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