The vast choice of restaurants and trattorias in and around Modena offer alternative menus outside the scope of the "Modena a tavola" mark but still very much in line with local tradition. As well as the most highly prized prosciutto, hors d'oeuvres may include a whole range of salamis made from different types of meat, with different proportions of fat, minced in different ways and containing different natural flavourings. The most typical is the so-called "salame montanaro" or mountain salami, made from pure lean pork, minced medium-fine, flavoured with salt and peppercorns, stuffed into pork gut and cured. Another very fragrant local product is mortadella, or Bologna sausage, traditionally made by grinding meat with a pestle and mortar - hence the name. Before pepper arrived from India, mortadella used to be flavoured with myrtle berries. The thirty per cent fat added to the finely minced lean meat is cut into cubes, so a large slice of mortadella looks like a circle of pink with lots of white eyes. Then come the whole series of pancetta and coppa products, made from rolling combinations of lean meat and fat. The most humble of all these products are coppa di testa, a kind of brawn, and ciccioli, pressed pork scratchings, both highly prized delicacies in spite of their ingredients. In country trattorias, one of the favourite pasta dishes is maccheroni al pettine, macaroni made by hand from strips of egg pasta and decorated with ridges by wrapping them round a stick and passing them over a traditional comb-like implement, served with a meat ragout. As main course, particularly in cold weather, there are two equally delicious variants on the zampone. Cotechino consists of a filling with slightly more fat than that of zampone stuffed into pig gut, while cappello da prete is made by wrapping zampone filling into the skin of a pig's cheek and sewing it into the shape of a three-cornered hat. The local pork sausages, or salsicce, are also mouth-watering and very meaty. Modena's most characteristic type of cake is known as "bensone or belsone". Baked in the shape of a long loaf of bread, when oven-fresh this dessert has the fragrance and goodness of all the best simple foods. It used to be eaten cut in slices and dunked in lambrusco or the local sweet white wine.