I really like Oscar Meyer hard salami…I think I should branch out. (I remember when a package of it was 99 cents, and my first husband and I were too broke to afford it.)
What cheese(es) do you eat with what. And include sandwich combos, too, please.
Start with Columbus brand dry salamis. Good intro stuff. Or Boars Head. Then find a store with a decent deli case and sample. Have the guy give you a few slices of everything they have and start tasting.
We usually buy Columbus brand. In addition to eating it in sandwiches and on pizza, I like to smear some cream cheese on a slice and roll it up and eat it for snack.
Columbus Salame Toscano is kicking my butt lately. It’s all pork, mildly spiced, with those big white spots of lard and the peppercorns. Great on a little pane rustico, or just pop it with squares of cheese…yum.
Around here, we love Volpi Salami.
It’s delicious. We get it sliced paper thin. It’s available year-round, but we limit ourselves to getting a few pounds to last through Christmas, and New Year’s Eve/Day.
That’s a nice, little sampler, but I’m not at all fond of the wine-infused salami. It just tastes all wrong to me. I’ll stick with any of the others, but my favorite will always be the Genova.
The site of a naval battle fought between a coalition of Greek city-states and the Persian empire in 480 B.C., immediately following the famous last stand of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Greek navy won a decisive victory, forcing the Persian king Xerxes to return home with his army and abandon his invasion of Greece.
As silenus posted, pepperoni (and other salamis) are great fried up with eggs.
In my opinion, you really need to cook pepperoni. Eaten at room temperature, it tastes too greasy.
On suggestions others have made, I agree capicolla and soppresata are great.
Now if you’d like to try something non-Italian, you could get some kielbasa, which is a Polish sausage with garlic. (It’s technically not a salami but it’s close enough.)
You might like finocchiona as well- it’s a variant on Tuscan salami seasoned with fennel, black pepper and garlic.
While on the subject of salumi, Mortadella is like the bologna they serve in Heaven. Great stuff, even if it does look like bologna with stuff in it. Well worth a try.