Salami, salted and air-dried (dry-cured) sausage that has been popular in Italy for millennia and is now enjoyed the world over. Its exact origins are unknown.

The tradition of salting meat to preserve it is widely shared among numerous world cultures. Salami, which derives from the Italian word for “to salt” by way of the Latin sal, dates to ancient Roman times, but it is likely to be older still. Given that many neighbouring cultures with salami-making traditions of their own were under Roman rule, it is difficult to pinpoint a specific origin. What can be safely said, however, is that in Italy alone there are more than 150 named varieties of salami, and in Germany, Hungary, France, and Spain there are many more.

Salami is generally made from lean and fat cuts of pork from the shoulder and back that are ground together, stuffed into a sausage casing, and then usually air-cured for a period of weeks or months, a process that is aided by Italy’s dry climate. During this time, the sausage dehydrates, while the interior undergoes fermentation with the breakdown of lactic acid. To preserve them even longer, some salamis are smoked, while some are also cooked; the latter are called cotto in Italian to distinguish them from cured salamis. Moreover, kosher salami, which because of Jewish dietary laws does not use pork, is traditionally cooked, and other forms of beef salami are often cooked rather than cured in the Genoa style. Some salamis are lightly spiced, if at all, whereas many others make use of hot or black pepper, garlic, wine, fennel, and other ingredients.

In Italy there are many regional variations of salami. The Milanese version contains beef, pork, fat, white wine, and garlic, while Florentine salami is made of pork alone that is cut into relatively large pieces rather than ground. Soppressata, a kind of salami popular in southern Italy, is dry-cured and sometimes contains ham as well as ground pork. Southern Italians and Sicilians are fond of hot peppers as an ingredient–as in ’nduja , a peppery hot spreadable salami–while northerners tend to prefer milder spicing. In the export market, particularly the United States, the best-known variety of salami is probably the Genoese, which classically is made with medium-ground veal, pork, and pork fat. An American variant of Genoa salami is pepperoni, which makes use of pork and paprika and is the most popular topping on pizza in the United States.

Fermented salamis have a probiotic function that aids in the maintenance of healthy gut flora. While salamis generally are high in protein, they are also high in fat and sodium and are highly processed, for which reason nutritionists advise that the sausage be eaten in moderation.