Monday, April 13, 2009

Cooking term--Capicola

Capicola, or coppa, is a traditional Neapolitan Italian cold cut (salume) made from pork shoulder or neck and dry-cured whole. The name coppa is Italian for nape, while capicola comes from capo—head and collo—neck of a pig. The Neapolitan Italian spelling, "'Capocollo'", is dervied from Latin, "caput collum". It is similar to the more widely known cured ham, Prosciutto, though the two are quite distinct. In fact, Capicola is often incorrectly referred to as a type of ham, likely because they are both pork derived cold-cuts that are used in similar dishes. However, the technical definition of ham is the thigh and buttocks of a pig (or boar) slaughtered for meat, whereas Capicola is solely meat from the shoulder or neck.