Ventricina is a typical cured meat from central Italy, in particular around Abruzzo and Molise. It’s flavoured with chilli pepper and fennel seeds. It can be served with pickled vegetables or vegetables in oil, or you can use it in small pieces to add an intense, flavourful taste to ragù.

This is a typical cured meat from Calabria. The meat mixture is fine and enriched with wild fennel and chilli pepper, which gives it a spicy flavour and its characteristic bright red colour. The tradition of flattening the fresh salami (which gives it its name) was needed due to Calabria’s hot climate, where it would be more difficult for a classic cylindrical salami to age properly. Spianata is excellent on pizza, focaccia, or in a “100% Calabrian” sandwich with aubergines and provola cheese or even sliced into strips in pasta.

“Salami” and “lean” are two words that don’t really go together in the same sentence, nor in the same recipe. But there are some products out there with a lower fat content, with the benefit of a more balanced and health-conscious nutritional intake. For example, there’s our lean salami called Il Cortese, with a very low fat percentage and no gluten or lactose just like all Segata cured meats.