Head Cheese & Olive Bread

After the flea market at Piazza dei Ciompi in Firenze last Sunday, I walked a few blocks further and saw yellow-tented stalls. Hmm. A food market: cheeses, meats, breads and a few other goodies. Some from Toscana (Tuscany), Firenze’s region. Some spicier ones from the south.

‘Nduja is a casing-stuffed meat that is spicy and spreadable. Very nice with good bread.

“Do you have a problem with cholesterol? Diet? The solution is Tometta (cheese) of 100% pure goats milk. Lower fat content.”

How about some deer meat salame?

I sampled gorgonzola mixed with black truffle and bought a little tub of that to take home. Sampled from a big round of pecorino. Then walked up to a meat vendor that fed me enough samples that I didn’t need lunch. They offered huge, cased, cured meats from which they’d shave a piece and use the knife to hand it to me: prosciutto, porchetta, salame, soppressata. I tried them all, peppered and mild, whole, ground and chunked and knew I wanted to buy a piece. After all the samples, I was indecisive because I liked them all, but I bought soppressata.

In the photo below, soppresatta is the large-chunk round near the black-rind cheese.

In nine months this is one meat I hadn’t tried yet because it’s a Tuscan meat and not so common up north. My markets don’t offer it. Soppressata is made of the left over parts of the pig: cartilage, tongue, head scraps… you name it, nothing’s wasted. The head is boiled for a few hours then picked of meat, skin and all “edible parts”. All of the picked bits are chopped large, seasoned, and stuffed into a casing about 10″ across. The broth from cooking is poured into the casing to cover the meat parts. It is then hung and the liquid thickens and binds everything into a solid. (In the U.S., it might be called “head cheese”.)

The soppresatta that this vendor offered had a nice peppery bite to it. Soppressata omelette? Soppressata burger? “They” are saying that soppressata pizza is the new big thing. I believe it.

Here’s the front end of the porchetta – roast pig.

With gorgonzola and soppressata in my bag, I continued walking. I should have bought a nice Tuscan bread to bring home on the train, but didn’t. I’ve always marveled at these HUGE loaves I see at the markets. Ask for some bread and they just whack off a chunk. These loaves are about 4 feet long.

And look at this green olive bread!

This Toma cheese is so beautiful to look at.

2 Responses to “Head Cheese & Olive Bread”

1. Maureen says:

   April 4, 2010 at 10:47 PM

   I wonder whether the soppressata there has the distinctive chunks of body parts that are present here. It’ll be interesting to compare.
2. patru says:

   April 4, 2010 at 10:45 PM

   Oh those meats and cheeses look wonderful. We have soppressata here, but I bet it isn’t as fresh and delicious as yours. That olive bread looks so yummy.