CAPICOLA

'Capicola', or 'coppa', is an Italian cold cut (''salume''). It is made from a piece of pork shoulder, dry-cured whole . The name is from "Coppa," Italian for cured meat (alternatively from ''capo''—head), and "collo," the neck (and shoulder) of a pig. It is esteemed for its taste and is more expensive than most other salumi. It is usually sliced thin for antipasto or sandwiches, such as muffulettas and hoagies, as well as some Italian pizzas.
Capicola is often but incorrectly referred to as a type of ham, probably because it is made from pork meat. However, the technical definition of ham is the thigh and butt of any animal (but typically a pig) that is slaughtered for meat.

Contents

Ingredients

Alternate Pronunciation

In popular media

Alternate spellings

Ingredients

The official ingredients listed in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's 2005 Food Standards and Labeling Policy Book are:
:"Boneless pork shoulder butts which are cured and then cooked. The cool curing process may be dry curing, immersion curing, or pump curing. The cured product is coated with spices and paprika before cooking. This product shall always be labeled with "Cooked" as part of the product name. Water added is permitted."

Alternate Pronunciation

Capicola is sometimes pronounced "gab-buh-GOOL" (often spelled "gabagoul" to signify this pronunciation in dialog) by Italian-Americans in the US East Coast metropolitan areas.

In popular media

Capicola is a recurring motif in the HBO television series ''The Sopranos'', in which it is usually pronounced "gab-buh-GOOL" in the Italian-American dialect of its characters. Most famously, Tony Soprano suffers an anxiety attack when he opens a package of capicola. His psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi, uses a similar Italian-American pronunciation, "Let's get back to the ''gab-buh-GOOL''."
Capicola also appears in the films ''The Godfather'' and ''Artie Lange's Beer League'', in which it is also pronounced this way.

Alternate spellings

The various (English language) spellings are ordered by how many hits each spelling received on a google search performed on June 25, 2007, a good indication of the relative popularity of the spelling variations. The search was limited to webpages written in English.

★ Capicola (78,100)

★ Cappicola (30,900)

★ Capícolla (21,600)

★ (14,300) or Capicollo (10,100) ''Spellings used in Italy''

★ Capricola (1,010)

★ Capocolla (820)

★ Capacollo (757)

★ Capacola (685)

★ Cappacuolo (340)

★ Cappacoli (212)

★ Capacolo (157)

★ Capiciolla (68)

★ Cappy (17)