Salame piccante in italy has 0% to do with the crap passed as pepperoni in US pizzas. It's a traditional salami (cured meat). The same way Sprite is not champagne.
>Pepperoni does not exist as an Italian word.
I know, I speak the language. Peperoni however, where the name for the topping was copied from, does, and is the plural for a kind of pepper (bell pepper).
Peperoni or pepperoni (which is often referred in both "p" and "pp" version in the US), is obviously a copy of the italian word "peperone", out of context, to make it sound as this crap is some traditional italian ingredient.
Bell pepper to be exact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_pepper
>The terms bell pepper (US, Canada, Philippines), pepper or sweet pepper (UK, Ireland, South Africa, Zimbabwe), and capsicum (Australia, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) are often used for any of the large bell-shaped peppers, regardless of their color. The fruit is simply referred to as a "pepper", or additionally by color ("green pepper" or red, yellow, orange, purple, brown, black).[6] In the Midland region of the U.S., bell peppers, either fresh or when stuffed and pickled, are sometimes called mangoes.
Pepperoni does not exist as an Italian word.
What the US call "pepperoni" is "salame piccante" in Italy.
Peperone (without the double p, one peperone, two or more peperoni) is the green/yellow/red (not spicy) vegetable that in english is called pepper (undistinguished from "pepper", the spicy grains that in Italian are called "pepe").