Parco Nazionale della Val Grande

If when you think of a mortadella what comes to mind is a classic pink cooked sausage cut in large slices (the so-called "Bologna", in other words) then you are wrong. Val d'Ossola's mortadella is something else entirely. This delicious sausage, traditional of the Ossola valley, is actually a salami. The misconception probably comes from ancient times, when butchers used a mortar (from which comes the name mortadella) to cut the pork.