Panino con Frico
Frico (crispy fried cheese wafer or soft cheese-potato dish) on bread; either version.
Andrew Lekashman
Panino con Friarielli
Friarielli (sautéed broccoli rabe with garlic and chili) on bread; bitter, garlicky green.
Panino con Fregola
Toasted semolina pasta (fregola) as a salad filling; unusual but exists.
Panino con Focaccia Ripiena
Stuffed focaccia with various fillings baked in.
Panino con Fiore Sardo
Fiore Sardo DOP (smoked pecorino from the interior); smoky, intense sheep's milk cheese.
Panino con Filone
Sandwich on filone (long loaf).
Panino con Falafel
Falafel sandwich; Middle Eastern influence.
Panino con Culatello di Zibello
Culatello (cured heart of the pork rump, the 'king of salumi') from Zibello; aged in humid Po River cellars, complex and expensive.
Panino con Cotoletta
Milan's breaded-cutlet panino has one problem: the fried shell that makes it worth eating starts softening the moment it leaves the pan. Timing is the whole craft.
Panino con Cotoletta Milanese
Breaded veal cutlet on bread; can be bone-in or boneless, sometimes with arugula.
Panino con Corallina Romana
Coins of corallina romana, the lean Roman salame studded with white fat cubes and whole peppercorns, folded into a rosetta. The cured meat the Roman Easter table is built around.
Panino con Coppiette
Coppiette (dried, spiced pork strips, originally horse meat); chewy, intensely flavored snack.
Panino con Coppia Ferrarese
The panino con coppia ferrarese is built on a bone-dry, four-horned Ferrara sourdough (IGP since 2001) that is almost all crust, with crumb only in its central knot, filled with a dry local salume.
Panino con Coppa Piacentina
Coppa Piacentina DOP is the cured pork neck that Lombard merchants were naming separately by the 1600s. The marbled fat of the neck is what the six-month cure is built for.
Panino con Coppa di Testa Marchigiana
In the Marche, coppa names two unrelated pork products. This panino uses coppa di testa: a whole head boiled, picked, and re-set in its own gelatine, citrus-seasoned, made only in winter.
Panino con Coglioni di Mulo
Comically named 'mule's testicles' salami (actually large pork salami); Norcia specialty.
Panino con Ciriola
Sandwich on ciriola (short Roman baguette).
Panino con Cipolla Rossa di Tropea
Sweet red onion of Tropea IGP on sandwich; mild, sweet, often raw or in marmalade.
Panino con Cinta Senese
Salumi from Cinta Senese heritage pigs (black with white belt); prized, intensely flavored pork.
Panino con Cime di Rapa
Puglia's bitter turnip tops boiled then fried down with garlic, chilli, and an optional anchovy, piled into a crusted roll or puccia. A cooked vegetable carrying the whole sandwich.
Panino con Cima alla Genovese
Cima (stuffed veal breast with eggs, vegetables, offal); sliced cold for sandwiches.
Panino con Ciauscolo
Ciauscolo IGP (soft, spreadable salami from Marche); smeared on bread like pâté, heavily spiced with garlic, black pepper.
Panino con Ciabatta
Sandwich on ciabatta bread (crisp crust, open crumb, olive oil); invented 1982 in Veneto.
Panino con Casu Marzu
The controversial 'rotten cheese' with live insect larvae; illegal to sell, still made and eaten; strong, pungent, ammonia-rich.