How to order at an Italian deli counter

People hesitate at a deli counter more than at almost any other part of a restaurant. There is a case of things with Italian names, someone waiting for you to say something, and a suspicion that there is a correct way to do this. There sort of is, and it takes about two minutes to learn.

Ask by weight, not by slices

The standard unit is a quarter pound or a half pound. A quarter pound of prosciutto is roughly enough for two sandwiches, or for two people picking at a board. Half a pound feeds four as part of an antipasto.

Asking for “six slices” is not wrong, but it is ambiguous — six slices of prosciutto cut properly thin is a very different amount from six slices of mortadella. Weight is unambiguous, which is why it is what the counter uses.

Say what it is for

This is the single most useful thing you can do, because it determines the thickness, and thickness changes the product more than most people expect.

• For a board: prosciutto and bresaola go almost transparent, so they drape rather than sit flat. Speck a touch thicker.
• For a sandwich: slightly thicker, so it does not disappear into the bread.
• For cooking: thicker again, so it can be cut into pieces and rendered.

“Half a pound of prosciutto, for a board” tells us everything we need. So does “enough mortadella for four sandwiches”.

It is fine to ask to taste

A slice off the top, handed across the counter, is completely normal and always has been. If you are deciding between the bresaola and the speck, ask. Nobody minds, and it is a faster way to decide than reading a description.

A rough guide to what is in the case

• Prosciutto di Parma — the safe first choice. Sweet, delicate, aged at least twelve months. If you are unsure, start here.
• Mortadella — silky, gently spiced, pistachio through it. Nothing like the supermarket product it shares a shape with.
• Bresaola — air-dried beef, lean and deep red. The one to pick if prosciutto feels too rich, or if you want something that is not pork.
• Speck — lightly smoked, from the mountains near Austria. The most assertive of the four. Good with cheese, less good on its own.

Building a board

Three meats is plenty; four is generous. Aim for contrast rather than coverage — something sweet and delicate, something lean, something with a bit of smoke or spice. Two cheeses is enough alongside them.

If you would rather not assemble it yourself, our Tagliere ($30) is exactly this, put together for you: cold cuts and fresh cheeses, cut to order.

One practical thing about timing

Buy it as close to eating it as you reasonably can. Cured meat is at its best within a few hours of being sliced — prosciutto especially, which starts to dry and dull at the edges quickly once it is cut. This is the entire argument for a counter that slices to order over a tray that was filled at nine in the morning.

If you are buying for tomorrow, tell us, and we will wrap it so it keeps rather than sits.

And if you would rather someone else decided

Order the mortadella sandwich — mortadella, pesto pistacchio, stracciatella and arugula, $14. It is the one we would hand somebody who had never stood at an Italian counter before, and it settles the question of whether this is worth learning.

Roughly what things cost

Cured meat is priced by weight and the range is wide, which is the other thing that makes the counter feel opaque. As a rough guide: prosciutto di Parma and bresaola sit at the top, speck a little below, mortadella lower again. A quarter pound of the first two is a real ingredient rather than a snack purchase, and it is worth knowing that before you ask for a pound of it.

Our sandwiches are $14 across the board, and the Saltimbocca — pizza dough folded around a filling and baked — is $20. The Tagliere board is $30.

Two mistakes worth avoiding

Buying too much. Cured meat does not keep well once sliced, and a half pound of prosciutto is more than most people think. Buy for the next day or two, not the week.

Ordering everything sliced the same. If you ask for four meats and say nothing about thickness, they will all arrive at a sensible default — which will be right for two of them and wrong for the others. Thirty seconds of conversation fixes this.

The part nobody tells you

There is no correct order and nobody is judging you. The counter exists to sell you food, and the person behind it would far rather explain what bresaola is than watch you leave with something you did not want. Ask. It is genuinely the whole system.

The full list is on the menu.

Hungry yet?

Neapolitan pizza, Roman pasta and an Italian deli at 2500 E Commercial Blvd, Fort Lauderdale.