Why Not Put the Meat *In* the Bread?

My attempt at a delicious, uncommon Italian-American specialty.

Have you ever heard of prosciutto bread? Sometimes it’s called lard bread, and probably some other things too. It’s a loaf of fairly standard Italian bread, with small chunks of cured meat, black pepper, and sometimes ribbons of cheese (usually provolone) or pure pork fat. Whether you add the extra fat or not, the fat in the meat renders out into the lo…