True story: At a big get together at my family's cottage with our neighbors, the youngest of the neighbor crew - a 4 year-old with wisdom beyond his years - was seen walking around with a slab of bacon about half the size of his arm. His uncle stopped and ask him what he was eating. His response: "Meat candy."
I have had a few foods ruined for me so far in my life. I'll never find carne asada tacos as good as the grilled-over-open flame goodness at Taqueria el Asadero in Chicago or roasted chicken quite like hardwood rotisserie chicken at the pollerias in Lima and Cusco. But by far the most devastating of these moments was a trip to Mario Batali's parents' salami shop in Seattle -
Salumi. It has effectively ruined an entire food group for me as every slice of cured meat I've had since has paled in comparison to the expertly cured meats at Salumi.
But like the saying goes, when life deals you lemons, toss the lemons with a bunch of salt and make some preserved lemons. And so began my foray into
charcuterie - the craft of preserved and cured meats.
Broadly speaking, charcuterie can be thought of as any meat that has been cured or preserved in some way, typically through the use of salt and drying the meat in a cool, dry place for anywhere from a week to a year or more. Initially invented as a way of preserving protein sources prior to the invention of refrigeration, it is now mainly found in artisinal meat shops or your local hipster-infested farmer's market. Unfortunately, most of our exposure to charcuterie is limited to hot dogs and bacon, or maybe some salami or capicola from the local deli. But the world of cured meats extends far beyond these grocery store classics to things like duck confit (preserved duck leg cooked in its rendered fat) and smoked sausages.
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Salumi had been on my radar for a while but I wasn't sure when I'd ever make it to Seattle. On one visit out to Portland to visit Mrs. T's family, I had the idea of flying into Seattle and then driving to Portland, for the sole purpose of grabbing at sandwich at Salumi. Mrs T., being the good sport that she is, only gave a slight roll of the eyes before going along with the plan.
After my first bite of my finocchiona sandwich at Salumi, I knew I had crossed a Rubicon of sorts, I would never be satisfied by a generic Italian deli sub again. The thin slices of finocchiona - a salami spiced with whole fennel seeds - bursted with porky, salty goodness, topped with a fresh baked airy ciabatta. I was in pork nirvana and didn't want to leave.
Later that week, while in Portland's famed Powell's bookstore, I came across
Charcturie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, written by Mark Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, the Godfathers of charcuterie in America.
A few weeks later, I had hunks of raw meat hanging in our spare closet.
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