Introducing Coppiette: Top Shelf Truck Stop Snacks

There is a threatened culture on the American roadways, one that affects us all: the culture of the truck driver, the man or woman on whose back this country runs.  Take a look around you, try to name something in your home, or on your plate, that did not come off a truck!

CB radio waves once connected strangers with a shared destiny and turned them into friends, rolling across America. But the arrival of the cell phone and new, more technologically hip modes of communication has squashed that communal energy – think about the last time you witnessed a convoy driving down the road.

American roadways are also losing its food culture — chains have moved in where Mom and Pop once pumped the gas and made the bacon and eggs, where Flo’s meat loaf was the food of the gods! And with these changes, we lose a piece of grand American folklore.

But alas, all is not lost! We at Heritage Foods, in collaboration with Olive Oil Jones and Smoking Goose in Indianapolis with talented curemaster Chris Eley at the helm, have recreated the classic trucker truck stop snack of Italy! Of course, in typical Italian fashion, their version of jerky calls for the most expensive cut of the pig, the cherished center cut pork loin, and the recipe requires a curing process in which 80% of the starting weight is lost! But the results speak for themselves — this jerky is delicious!

Production of Coppiette has largely died out, despite the loyal following of Italian truck drivers who buy it at truck stops.  Coppiette are meant to be a gnaw, and that is exactly its appeal, especially for long journeys. But it is the spectacular addition of fennel seed, hot dried chili flakes, and finely ground sea salt by Chris that results in the single-most addictive jerky-type snack we have ever encountered.