Grated salami would be tastier than bacon bits. Having an extra-savory taste, it would make an excellent addition to a salad, or to noodles (pasta carbonara), garlic bread, melted cheese on toast, mashed potatoes, or other cooked veggies.

Salami and other cured lunch meats are considered less healthy for the arteries, as is bacon, however when grated finely should permit more of the heavy unsaturated fat to react with saliva in the mouth before reaching the stomach.

Furthermore, the high surface area of the grated form would also stimulate the savory taste buds more by elevating the level of free glutamate sloshing around in your mouth, thus allowing less to be consumed in order to achieve umami/savoriness satiation. Short of a bacon smoothie, this is as good as it gets.

Grated salami should definitely be introduced as a pizza topping everywhere, and should be distinguished from mere shredded salami or shredded pepperoni, which already exist as toppings. For best results, the grated salami should be sprinkled directly on top of the cheese, before other toppings are added.

Because salami is naturally soft, somewhat fibrous and also oily/fatty, it would normally be exceedingly hard to grate without clogging up the sharp surfaces of any grater. Therefore the salami should be near-frozen when it is grated, in order to keep it from being sticky, thus allowing it to grate better.
-- sanman, Mar 29 2013

Microtome Meats Microtome_20Meats
same principle but with knives so sharp they are whetted on glass. [bungston, Mar 29 2013]

This person grates salami with a microplane grater box. http://www.flickr.c...rahaven/2451802475/
[xandram, Mar 29 2013]

[+] apart from //when grated finely should permit more of the heavy unsaturated fat to react with saliva in the mouth before reaching the stomach.// In what way would this reduce the amount of unsaturated fat?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 29 2013


Did that sneaky sanman answer Max by expanding his idea to include umami? And is umami anything like you mama? Because if so I like it!
-- bungston, Mar 29 2013


If you cooked the grated salami before using it as a topping, you could separate out some of that unhealthy fat.
-- Vernon, Mar 29 2013


Max, the unsaturated fats would have more chance to react/saturate before reaching your bloodstream, due to the higher surface area exposure of the grated meat. Reduction would be in the sense of less grated meat being required in order to satisfy your taste buds, so the serving amount would be smaller. The greater surface area again affords more interaction with your taste buds - more savoriness/umami for less meat consumed. Just like how melted cheese is more savory than solid cheese in your mouth.
-- sanman, Mar 29 2013


//unsaturated fats would have more chance to react/saturate before reaching your bloodstream// As far as I know, that won't happen in saliva; but I'm prepared to be convinced otherwise.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 29 2013


// tastier than bacon bits //

Your delusion saddens me. Is this rejection of bacon as the tastiest of all meats the only fundamental truth you deny, or part of a greater program of dogmatic conditioning to which you have been subjected since childhood?
-- Alterother, Mar 29 2013


Alterother, think of cured pork as concentrated distilled bacon.
-- sanman, Mar 29 2013


This borders on a recipe, but I do think it would be good. I think I'd prefer strips of salami.
-- xandram, Mar 29 2013


Today's experiment involved a Pepperami (which was playing the part of a salamus), liquid nitrogen (which played the part of liquid nitrogen), and a wrench (which played the part of a hammer).

The result was less than ideally perfect, consisting of two large pieces of Pepperami, >2 smallish chunks (only two were found, but I heard at least one other hit something on the other side of the room), and a small amount of rapidly-defrosting powder/paste which tasted of wrench.

Howevertheless, the method shows promise.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 30 2013


Max, I'll give you high marks for effort, but I don't know of any way to prepare food that involves a wrench. Even a scraping knife might have created some useful shavings, though.

Best to save that liquid nitrogen for making ice cream.
-- sanman, Mar 30 2013


//I don't know of any way to prepare food that involves a wrench.// The trick would be to make a suitably flavoured wrench.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 31 2013


I marvel that the guy who could produce (among other things) a gold sovereign, a neodymium permanent magnet, liquid nitrogen and a Pepperami did not have a hammer handy. Some of those hammers are good for whacking food, you know. Food whacking hammers. They sell them in places that sell forks and stuff.
-- bungston, Mar 31 2013


My handiness threshold is quite low. All of my available hammers (geological, ball-pein, sledge and watchmaker's) require excavation from behind various piles of stuff, some of it sharp and/or living.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 31 2013


It's alright, I've got one here. I have a hammer in every room of my home (except one of the bathrooms).
-- Alterother, Apr 01 2013


//except one of the bathrooms//

Great, now I know what to get you for your birthday (or Saturnalia, whichever comes first).
-- ytk, Apr 01 2013



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