Persuading Italians to Hold the Prosciutto and Pass the Pastrami

TREBBIO, Italy — Deep in the Tuscan countryside, between a hill and a bleating sheep, Gianluca Tonelli tended to 17 pounds of pastrami soaking in a plastic container filled with brine.

With his trademark porkpie hat and gray goatee, Mr. Tonelli, a worshiper of what he called “pastrami culture” — “We started a klezmer band!” — sidestepped Dante, his family’s pet pig, and loaded freshly chopped cherry wood chips into a smoker.

In the house, he showed off heavy-duty cooking devices, including a pressure cooker in which he aromatizes the pastrami with cloves and Tuscan red wine, before selling it from a bright red food truck.

For Mr. Tonelli and pastrami, it has been love at first bite since that fateful day decades ago when he first visited Katz’s Delicatessen in Manhattan. “Pastrami has always stayed in his heart,” said his wife, Beatrice Baroni, 35.

For Trebbio and its environs around Lucca, it has been something a little less than love. But that has not dimmed Mr. Tonelli’s ardor, or his ambition to become the pastrami king of Tuscany.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/world/europe/persuading-italians-to-hold-the-prosciutto-and-pass-the-pastrami.html?