The schiacciata con salame toscano is the plainest member of the Tuscan flatbread-and-salume family, and that plainness is the point: a quiet oiled bread and a forthright pork salame, each leaning on the other. Schiacciata, the squashed one, is a low leavened dough pressed flat, dimpled, rubbed with olive oil and salt, and baked until the surface is gold and faintly crisp over a soft, open crumb. Salame toscano is the coarse-ground pork salame of the region, large white fat dice through a deep red lean, seasoned firmly with black pepper and garlic and pressed to a clean, sliceable round. The defining fact is the balance between the two: the schiacciata's saltless, oil-slicked crumb is deliberately blank so the salame's pepper, garlic, and fat read clearly, while the bread's softness and oil give the firm salame a yielding surface to fold against. Without the salame the schiacciata is plain oiled flatbread; without the quiet crumb the salame has nothing neutral to push against. The two are matched so a bland bread lets an assertive salume carry the bite.
Making it well begins with both being in good condition. The schiacciata is best warm or same-day, split horizontally so its two oiled faces meet the meat and the crumb is soft enough to compress slightly and grip the fill. The salame toscano is sliced medium thin, supple but with enough body to show its coarse grain, and laid loosely so the bread can close and the fat spreads thin across each mouthful rather than pooling. The pepper and garlic of the cure are the flavour, so nothing sharp or sweet is added to bury them, and the bread's own oil is the only fat needed. A sloppy build uses a cold tight slab of bread and a thick salty stack that reads as one greasy mass; a good one is soft and oiled, loosely but generously filled, and balanced so the plain flatbread and the robust pork add up.
The close cousins stay in the Tuscan oiled-flatbread habit, each its own subject rather than a footnote here. There is the schiacciata con finocchiona with the fennel salame, the schiacciata con sbriciolona with its soft crumbling cousin, the schiacciata con mortadella on cooked sausage, and the schiacciata con lardo di Colonnata built on cured back fat. Each is the same oiled-flatbread-meets-cured-pork idea with one element changed, and each deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here.