La Salumeria: Italian Cured Meats

Our next stop is Bruno e Franco, perhaps the best salumeria in Bologna. The walls are lined with shelves of salumi, which means all sorts of cured pork, in what Piergeorgio picturesquely calls “a cathedral of affetatti (sliced salumi) from Emilia-Romagna.” One fascinating kind of prosciutto we find here is culatello. The salumi man explains that culatello cannot be made without the winter fog off the Po River. The fog is allowed into the curing rooms when the prosciutto is hanging, then the doors are closed to seal in the humidity. Find out what additional practices give culatello its special flavor in this segment so savory you can nearly smell the salumi.

For our last stop, we will drop into the enoteca, or wine shop, to choose a bottle that complements our dinner.