La merenda italiana, con i migliori salumi d'Italia

Italy is the only country in the world where there are so many varied options for your snacks; with over 400 types of bread and 700 cured meats to choose from, the neighbourhood food store is still the pop place where to look for your favourite merenda. Fried cake with Busseto culatta, Tuscan bread with finocchiona, Campana soppressata and traditional bread, mafalda and Sicilian cold cuts... these are only a few examples of luxury delicacies available to everyone, often with the added value of being produced with artisan methods in the back rooms of the many family-run shops located throughout the country.
This book is the result of ten years of work in the field thanks to the Guida Salumi d'Italia; a guide that I had really wanted to create since spring 2012 when with a group of friends (sommeliers, chefs, charcutiers, food critics, hotel schools), we began the first tastings and visits to food companies. An audacious project that in five editions has been able to document and catalogue the majority of cured meats produced in Italy, giving visibility to a sector that is unique in the world for quantity, variety, and quality. Therefore, this book was created with the goal of turning the spotlight on Italian charcuterie, incredibly varied from North to South but everyone's favourite filling of choice for a bread roll. At the same time, the book highlights a cultural and productive diversity in this sector, typically Italian, that needs to be safeguarded. In short: different cultures, different merendas. There are so many stories and anecdotes about the national merenda that can be told. We chose to dedicate the cover of this book precisely to the Culatello of Zibello, the king of cured meats, set on a fried cake with a curl of butter as per tradition-a refined pairing. The iconography of this project is an ever-changing representation that over time has transformed from necessity into desire, in full Italian style. I believe that this sector should be given more attention today, especially from restaurants, caterers, chefs, sommeliers, food shops and hotel schools. It is important that we start promoting the Italian charcuterie tradition, in the same way we as a country did in the past with fashion, art, music, wine and everything that represents the Made in Italy brand in the world.