Ventricina del Vastese

Vasto and the surrounding Vastese hills in southern Abruzzo. The peperoncino cultivation tradition of the Abruzzo and Molise borderlands created the specific spice profile of ventricina.

Ventricina del Vastese is one of the most distinctive salumi of southern-central Italy: a coarsely ground pork shoulder and belly mixed with generous quantities of dried sweet and hot peperoncino, fennel seeds, and rosemary, packed into the pig's stomach (ventricolo — hence ventricina) or large intestine and cured for 3-6 months. Unlike most salumi which are sliced at table, ventricina is often spread — the fat and soft meat at the centre of the cured form is spreadable and intensely flavoured. It is the salume of the Vastese coast and the Abruzzo interior.

• The Calabrian spreadable sausage also uses large quantities of Calabrian peperoncino and has a spreadable texture — both are the characteristic spicy spreadable salumi of their respective regions; ventricina is coarser-textured and less uniformly spreadable than 'nduja → 'Nduja Calabrian
• Spreadable raw-cured sausage with paprika — the Mallorcan tradition of paprika-rich, spreadable pork sausage is the closest parallel to ventricina's paprika-forward spreadable salumi tradition → Sobrasada de Mallorca Spanish

The sweet peperoncino provides an orange fragrance and warm depth rather than heat; the hot peperoncino adds sharpness. The rosemary and fennel give an herbal complexity. The coarse-ground pork fat, when spread at room temperature, melts with a sweet, pork richness. Together the flavour is bold, aromatic, and deeply savoury — this is not a background salume.