It's been a while, but David Pulice can still remember the pain that came hand in hand with making his family's homemade pork salami. When his mother, Carmela, and father, Alberto, immigrated from Belmonte Calabro in Italy's Calabria region to Weirton, West Virginia, in the late 1940s, they brought many of their food ways with them. Making the dry-cured Italian sausage known as soppressata each winter was one of them.

After slaughtering their pigs in the fall, Italian families would save the unwanted parts of the carcass along with any leftover bit of meat to turn into sausages to last through the winter. The Pulices continued the tradition in their new home with an army of aunts, uncles and cousins.