porchetta

Fast food all'italiana, sold all over central Italy from vans and trailers, and now known around the world. In Italy, and especially in Umbria where it's a religion, it's rolled and stuffed with bits of liver and spleen, and fennel or rosemary, with skin and fat still on, slow roasted for eight hours or so, and served between slabs of pane di Terni.

In the village of Grutti near Perugia they take the ears, snout, innards and other bits known as cicotto and roast them at the same time under the porchetta so they absorb all the flavours. Cicotto di Grutti is in the Slow Food Presidiium.

The current Guinness record for the largest porchetta is 44.93 metres, at Monte San Savino in Tuscany. Sagre della porchetta take place all over, notably at Ariccia near Rome where they say they invented it (early September), and at Austin, Texas, in July.