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Salumi Success

I have been perfecting (I hope) my curing skills in the hope that I will soon be able to start making and selling salumi (that's Italian charcuterie although some may be more French than Italian, of course). I seem to be getting there. Shortly before Christmas - for some reason, at my busiest time of the year, I always need an additional project. Probably, if I don't keep going, I'll simply stop altogether - I cured a Coppa (the muscle that runs from the neck to the loin), a Lonzo (the loin) and made various salami from a basic recipe with additions: some with olives, some simply with black pepper and, best of all, a Fenocchiona which has lots of garlic and fennel. The Lonzo was cold smoked for a couple of hours. Here are the results:



My youngest son and I demolished this in a matter of minutes. He didn't get any wine to go with it but I did: Fabrizio Battaglino's Roero Riserva 2015: just about reaching perfection, this has elegant Nebbiolo character with some supporting oak providing a suitable veneer. Tannins need a little longer to integrate to bring this to its apex but, with the Coppa and Fenocchiona in particular, they provided no obstacles for me.

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  1. Ian S6 January 2021 at 10:47

    They look very good James. I will follow with interest if you decide to make it a commercial activity. If you do, there are some good local farm shops that might be a good fit.

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  2. James Bercovici19 February 2021 at 10:51

    Thanks Ian. We've started some new salami and cured meats just a couple of weeks ago so we're just a few weeks away from going live with a new website for this side of things. Starting small, of course, but we will look at farm shops soon enough I think. We have some interesting products, in particular, lots of Piedmontese-inspired salami and venison-based products. You can tell we're enjoying ourselves with this.

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