Coppa Piacentina

Coppa Piacentina PDO is made from the coppa, the long muscle running along the pig's neck from the nape to the first ribs. Anatomically it is the same cut Americans meet at the deli counter as capicola and southern Italians call capocollo. What separates it is the cure.

The piece is dry-salted by hand with black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and bay, rested in cold rooms and massaged repeatedly so the salt reaches the centre, then cased in the pig's parietal diaphragm and tied by hand in a tight spiral of string. It ages a minimum of six months, often eight to ten.

A finished coppa weighs at least 1.5 kg. It is cylindrical, slightly tapered at both ends, with the string leaving visible grooves in the surface.

The cut is the reason it works. Neck muscle is neither fatty like belly nor lean like loin: it is threaded with intramuscular fat that renders slowly inside the meat over months of ageing. That is why a slice dissolves on the tongue instead of feeling greasy.

Piacenza is the only Italian province with three PDO cured meats (coppa, pancetta and salame) all recognised by the EU in 1996.

Sweet-spiced and rounded, with none of the chilli heat or garlic bite most people expect from Italian cured meat. The clove and cinnamon arrive first, faintly warm rather than pungent, then the pork underneath, deep and slightly nutty from long ageing.

The texture is the surprise. Where prosciutto is silky and bresaola is firm and dry, coppa is marbled: lean and fat alternate in a fine mosaic and melt together at mouth temperature. Nothing chews.

Well-aged pieces develop a note somewhere between hazelnut and butter at the finish. Younger ones, around the six-month minimum, taste sharper and more obviously spiced, with the seasoning still sitting on the surface rather than through the meat.

It should never be sour or metallic. A tang means the cure went wrong, and a soapy edge means the fat has oxidised.

Slice it thin, around a millimetre and a half, and serve it at room temperature. Straight from the fridge the fat stays waxy and releases nothing; twenty minutes on the counter is the whole difference between a good coppa and a dull one.

In Piacenza it comes with chisulén, puffed diamonds of fried dough, the local name for what Parma calls torta fritta and Modena calls gnocco fritto, or with burtleina, a thin fried batter pancake. The point is the heat: the warm dough melts the edge of the fat as you fold it around the slice.

On a board, keep it plain. Unsalted bread, sweet butter, aged Parmigiano, and nothing sweet. The cure already carries cinnamon and clove, so jams and chutneys cancel it out rather than lift it.

It is not a cooking meat, but the end of the piece is worth dicing into a risotto or a white ragù. On pizza, add it after the oven, because heat separates the fat and turns the spice bitter.

Do not shave it as thin as prosciutto. Coppa has long fibre and needs enough thickness to hold together, but past two millimetres it turns chewy.

A whole uncut coppa belongs in a cool room between 12 and 16 degrees, hanging or resting on a rack rather than flat on a closed surface, keeping for months and going on ageing. Once you cut into it, cover only the exposed face with waxed paper or film and leave the rest of the piece open to the air; from then on it is a three-to-four-week proposition. Vacuum packs run to the date on the sleeve in the refrigerator, and they want opening half an hour before serving, because straight out of the bag the smell is closed and flat and opens in air.

The changes are all about water leaving. The cut face dries and darkens into a firm rim that gets trimmed before slicing, the piece firms up and shrinks, the spice comes forward and the fat slowly oxidises from white towards ivory and yellow. A dry white bloom on the casing wipes off with a cloth dampened in vinegar or white wine. Freezing is not the answer: the intramuscular fat suffers and the slice loses its structure. The pack date and the producer are the reference.

Read the slice. A coppa piacentina shows a regular mosaic of deep red lean threaded with white fat, no large separate blocks of fat and no grey ring at the rim; yellowing fat marks a piece that has been around or warm for a while. It should feel compact but give slightly under a finger, and a slice should neither crumble nor cling to the blade. On the nose sweet spice comes first, because cinnamon and clove are the Piacenza signature, and cured meat second. If garlic or chilli leads, you are holding a capocollo from another tradition.

The outside matters too: the diaphragm casing should sit tight against the meat and the string should have left its marks, since a perfectly smooth cylinder means an artificial casing. On the label, look for the EU DOP mark and the Consorzio dei Salumi DOP Piacentini. Wording such as coppa stagionata, coppa nostrana or tipo piacentina describes something made outside the rules, often good and always cheaper. American delis sell it as capicola, usually the hotter Calabrian style; coppa di testa is head cheese and unrelated.

In the US, Italian importers and specialist grocers carry Coppa Piacentina PDO, though far more shelf space goes to domestic capicola. Eataly, Gustiamo and regional Italian delis are the reliable route; expect roughly 22 to 38 dollars per pound for a whole or half piece and considerably more sliced.

In the UK, Italian delicatessens and online grocers stock it at about 30 to 48 pounds per kilo. Availability is thinner than for prosciutto or salami, so it is often easier to order a vacuum-packed half piece direct.

Check the label for the blue-and-yellow PDO mark and a reference to the Consorzio dei Salumi DOP Piacentini. "Coppa stagionata", "coppa nostrana" and anything described as Piacenza-style are legally free to say almost nothing.

Look at the slice before you buy sliced. It should show a fine mosaic of red and white, not large separate blocks of fat, and the fat should be white: yellow means oxidised.

Buy a half piece vacuum-packed rather than a tray of slices whenever you can. It costs a third less per kilo and keeps its aroma, which sliced coppa loses in about two days.

Piacenza itself, in the delicatessens and osterie around Piazza Cavalli, where the board of coppa, pancetta and salame arrives with hot fried dough as a matter of course.

The valleys are the better trip. Castell'Arquato, a medieval hill town in the Val d'Arda, serves all three PDO meats alongside pisarei e fasö, the local gnocchi and bean dish. Bobbio, on the Trebbia with its humpbacked bridge, pairs them with mountain cooking. Ponte dell'Olio and Vigolzone, in the Val Nure, have long-established producers who sell at the door.

In the Val Tidone, the wine festival that moves between Ziano, Borgonovo and Pianello in September is the fastest way to taste Colli Piacentini wines and local salumi side by side.

One request worth making at any producer: ask for a slice of six-month coppa and a slice of ten-month next to each other. It is the most instructive tasting available on this product, and nobody minds being asked.