A lovely cured and smoked coppa is where it’s at.
Once You taste it, you cannot untaste it. Everything else is not good enough from then on.
Coppa is one of the stairs up to culinary heaven.
Now there is some variation on how coppa is done, I prefer a 10 day equilibrium brine, and then a 6 hour smoke to about 150. Chill, then cut and serve.
Though more important is the breed of pig used. Red wattle, Iberian, American guinea hog, pot belly. Stay away from all commodity pigs, especially the pink ones.
Then in order to get good fat and proper flavor you have to raise it on pasture and finish it on a high fat food like nuts. Iberian hams are thousands of dollars because they are really that good, we eat them as a normal thing (not the official inform spain versions because stupid amounts of money for my daily breakfast) but equivalent or better because we know what the hell we are doing and take it further.
Properly done pig can be a life changing moment of taste and flavor, and you may suddenly realize you have been eating cafeteria grade slop most of your life.
After all that, better do a good job on the pasta it goes in…
Thanks...now I'm hungry af.
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