Sunday, February 20, 2011

Artisanal Charcuterie

I really felt validated when I read in last Friday’s Business Day that the journalist who interviewed master meat curer Roberto sa Gimenez came away believing that “charturerie is among the noblest professions” - I’ve been saying this to anyone who’d listen, for at least six months.
Not that I’m comparing myself to this famous salumiere who’s been in the game for over  20 years and is known throughout the country for his Jamon Serrano and other splendidly cured pork goodies. Personally I can’t think of many things I’d rather do than spend some time with him and his magnificent year old fat covered hams. Perhaps he’d even let me sniff a few of his salami varieties with their alluring mould rind and that “indescribable sweet-salt, pungent foot thing going on.”
As the article says these are not average supermarket products, “there’s a complexity and intensity that cannot be reproduced by any tricks that food technology might have up its sleeve.” Let’s face it there’s no doubt that cured meats benefits enormously from the care and attention that can only be achieved by personal small-batch production.
It’s the same with my bacon, and because it’s free range pork which I dry cure and oak smoke I cannot produce it at the same price as commercial brine cured bacon, but then as we all know, you get  you pay for. 
Check out:  http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=134126

I’m out to cure the world.

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