Recent Trends in Food: Cured Meats

I was reading this article on a new trend in Italian restaurants in the U.S. Apparently, a lot of the high end spots are starting to cure their own meats and serve them their own instead of buying the industrial made stuff.

How about this to get you salivating. A nice cooler full of prosciutto (with a few cappocollos in there was well).



To make this the old school way you need the hind leg from a pig, some salt, black pepper (and perhaps some chili peppers if you're into a little more heat) and at least 10 months to cure the meat. Of course there's the initial preparation of the meat that needs to be done properly, so this not for amateurs. You need a pro to do it, which is why these places in the U.S. are getting someone specialized to do it.

This looks like some sort of salami, but if you ask me it looks pretty industrial grade.



Now this is a capocollo. This is the real thing. Its made from the shoulder of a pig. The meat is different from the hind leg -- I think its not as a tough. Its a solid slab of meat that gets black peppercorns inserted in the meat. It's then wrapped in a casing that is coated with pepper and other seasonings and then bound with string.

Just look at it. Its magnificent.

Here's some speck. As I understand, speck is a cross between the salting methods used by Italians and the smoking methods used by Germans and Northern Europeans. I guess you end up with something in between in terms of the flavours and textures.


The bresaola, is something I didn't try until recently at Teroni. It was pretty tasty. It's made from beef. From the descriptions I've read, it's sounds like its kind of made like a capocollo. It has a really nice colour and texture to it. I'd like to get close to one and smell it.


It would be nice if this trend in authentic cured meats made its way up here. As far as I can tell it's all over New York. There's even this new french bistro Bar Boulud, which is run by some guy from Lyons. Apparently, Lyons is well known for its sausage in France. So this guy brings in a charcutier, who is someone who basically makes sausage, cured meats as well as other things from pork, from Lyons to give the place the authentic stuff -- instead of the shit you can get at a supermarket. Up here, the closet I've heard to this trend is Teroni getting their prosciutto from a guy who makes them the old fashioned way. Still that's a start.