The Charcuterie Underground | Feature | Chicago Reader Share The Charcuterie Underground In the view of a burgeoning number of outlaw bacon curers and sausage grinders, some rules are made to be broken. Eric Futran Every Tuesday morning a refrigerated white truck with an anthropomorphic pig painted on its side pulls up in front of a house on a tree-lined street in a North Shore suburb. A Wisconsin farmer emerges and unloads three to four boxes filled with pork shoulders and bellies butchered from naturally raised pigs. He walks across the lawn and hands them off through the front door before driving on to the city to make his regular deliveries at the likes of North Pond and Frontera Grill. Inside, a 37-year-old apron-clad stay-at-home dad and furniture maker named Erik prepares his preschool daughter's lunch box in the kitchen. Then he joins his business partner, Ehran, in prepping for the day's bacon curing and sausage stuffing. Erik and Ehran, also a stay-at-home dad, are the principals of E & P Meats, a budding underground charcuterie business with an e-mail list of more than 200 customers.

Once a month they drive into the city and surrounding suburbs to drop off vacuum-sealed packages ordered from a rotating menu of about 15 meats they've stuffed, cured, and smoked entirely on the premises of Erik's handsome home. The deliveries are about half of the 40-60 orders they fill—the other half are collected by customers who show up at the door. When I visited last month they were rubbing down a few pork bellies with rosemary sprigs and a salt cure and experimenting with a new Italian sausage recipe. On the back porch, alongside the potted rosemary, three smokers issued thin white plumes that filled the neighborhood with a sweet, meaty perfume. Two contained slabs of bacon and the third—a ceramic tile Big Green Egg—held half a dozen of the paprika-and-mustard-rubbed chickens that Erik periodically smokes for favored mothers of his daughter's classmates. "We end up giving away probably, I don't know, 60 pounds of meat a month or more," says Erik. "Keeps all the neighbors happy if they don't like the smoke smell." They haven't made a profit yet.

Because they sell meats that aren't prepared in a licensed commercial facility, Erik and Ehran are operating outside the law. But some laws, they fervently believe, were made to be broken. "It's one of those things that's kind of overregulated," says Erik. "People have been canning and curing forever. It was invented to preserve food and keep things healthy." The charcuterie resistance is growing. Professional restaurant chefs without legal licensing or dedicated facilities cure their own meats out of view of the health inspectors all the time. And Erik and Ehran aren't the only ones making and selling outside of those professional kitchens: A former restaurant chef is currently curing two dozen duck breasts in a south-side warehouse; they'll end up on restaurant menus sometime around the holidays. Personal chef Helge Pedersen cures and ages lamb legs for the Norwegian salted meat fennelar, along with guanciale, soppressata, and pancetta, in a dedicated refrigerator in his Humboldt Park apartment and another in a garage space on Western Avenue. He sells them to friends as he hones his craft in anticipation of the day he opens his own retail space.

Laurence Mate is an amateur charcuterie maker downstate who documents his projects on the blog This Little Piggy. To make an end run around the government regulations governing the production and sale of charcuterie, Mate—another furniture maker—had a law student help him figure out how to set up a private club for members, who must register on his Web site in order to make "donations" by the pound for his terrines, sausage, pulled pork, and the spicy Calabrian salami paté nduja. He hasn't been challenged so far. Like Erik and Ehran, he makes no money and does it for the love of the craft. But if he had to cut through all the red tape required to produce and sell his products like a retailer, he says, it wouldn't be worth the effort. click to enlarge Eric Futran "The regulations are written for industrial food operations," says Mate. "And if you apply them to small-scale local producers, no one's gonna do it. It's legislating local food out of the market. Unfortunately, the health departments don't appreciate that. But that food is actually safer. It's easier for someone on that small scale to move things more quickly and be more careful.

Local markets are self-regulating. If there's anything wrong with your products and someone gets sick from it, then you're out of business." Not surprisingly, the Chicago Department of Public Health disagrees. "That person's comment reminds me of the criticisms leveled at Upton Sinclair and others a century ago who advocated for a safer food supply," e-mailed spokesman Tim Hadac. "True, the local market 'self-regulates'—but it does so sometimes at the expense of consumers' health and even lives. Every year in the U.S. food-borne illness causes an estimated 300,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. We in public health prefer commonsense, science-based regulation that focuses on prevention of food-borne illness before it occurs." Of course plenty of those illnesses were borne by regulated food. "The revival of local food economies is being hobbled by a tangle of regulations originally designed to check abuses by the very largest food producers," wrote locavore-in-chief Michael Pollan in his open letter to whoever would be president in the New York Times last fall. "Farmers should be able to smoke a ham and sell it to their neighbors without making a huge investment in federally approved facilities.

Food-safety regulations must be made sensitive to scale and marketplace, so that a small producer selling direct off the farm or at a farmers' market is not regulated as onerously as a multinational food manufacturer. This is not because local food won't ever have food-safety problems—it will—only that its problems will be less catastrophic and easier to manage because local food is inherently more traceable and accountable." When you know who made your food, Erik and Ehran add, you know what you're eating. "A friend came to me and said 'I love your sausages—don't tell me what you put in there,'" recalls Ehran. "I said, 'No, I will tell you. Ask me, and I will tell you, because it's not leftover scraps.'" "It's no longer scary to know what's in your sausage," says Erik. "It's just pork shoulder and about five spices." E & P Meats was born a little over two years ago after a wine-fueled soul-searching conversation between Erik and his wife, who produces TV commercials. "We were getting kind of drunk and talking about what we could do so she could quit her job," he says.

"And I said, 'Oh, maybe we can make sausage.' So I went the next day and bought the best grinder I could find at the kitchen store." click to enlarge Eric Futran Guided by Susan Mahnke Peery and Charles G. Reavis's Home Sausage Making, Erik and a friend, Phillip (the p in E & P), began grinding out bangers, brats, and Italian sausages. They hosted parties in Erik's backyard, catered an outside event, and even made a few sales before Phillip's wife was transferred to Michigan, taking him out of the picture. Enter Ehran, an Israeli-born ex-cinematographer and frequent guest at Erik and Phillip's sausage parties. "I've been cooking all my life," he says. "I think part of me getting to cooking was coming here and not having food as I'm used to—food that is made more at home, by hand." The pair began studying recipes from a number of published sources along with developing their own—particularly for bacon. Ehran assisted with an informal sausage-making workshop given by a friend who teaches at Kendall College.

"All the Jewish people here say, 'Oh, what is an Israeli boy doing making bacon?' says Ehran. "I grew up eating pork.'" "It took us like six months to get our formulas right," Erik says. Willing guinea pigs tested varieties such as maple and applewood smoked, an unsmoked Irish bacon, and more obscure recipes like a hammy French salt pork commonly used in the lentil dish petit sale. Free samples of paprika-rubbed turkey breast, pistachio-truffle sausage, and sage breakfast links were doled out to friends, neighbors, teachers, and their children's schoolmates. Ehran even flipped a vegetarian acquaintance with their pastrami. "Having to pay for them was just a natural transition," says Ehran. "They didn't complain." click to enlarge Eric Futran In May they each took a 15-hour course from their local health department and subsequently received state licensing for food service sanitation—the first step in going legit. That same month they released their first menu, consisting of four bacons, and thus began what has since become known as the monthly ritual of Meat Week.

Near the beginning of each month they release a menu—now usually several bacons, a sausage, and maybe a deli meat—and orders begin popping up in their in-box. Then they spend a frenzied few days putting up the bacon and grinding and stuffing the sausage. "We work like crazy," says Ehran. "Usually we'll go four nights past midnight. The kids are asleep." As word spread and they began taking on customers outside their immediate circle of friends, the demand began to take a toll on the equipment. A few months ago Erik's Waring sausage grinder, bought at Sur la Table, caught on fire in the midst of processing 40 pounds of meat. E & P may not yet be profitable, but they do they make enough money to afford some professional equipment upgrades they find on Craigslist, "usually from some giant guy with a beard," says Erik. "And they're always disgruntled. The guy we bought the refrigerator from—I told him what I was doing and he's like, 'Stay small.'" "I think that once we got the slicer there was no way back," says Ehran.

"I also realized that I don't know how I lived without one all my life." Their recently released holiday menu offers pistachio bacon brittle, cold-smoked Scottish salmon, and a membership in a six-month-long bacon-of-the-month club for $50. But they have yet to delve into the more complicated production of aged hams and long-cured and fermented meats like salamis. They'll need to jump over many more regulatory hurdles to get legal for that, but they're getting ready to start practicing, converting a storage room in Erik's basement into a cedar-lined temperature-and-humidity-controlled curing room. And they're not planning on being outlaws forever. Early next year Erik will be taking a course on the FDA's food safety management system, the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. He'll need to do that as well as submit a plan for approval to inspectors from his city's health department before E & P can open its own dedicated and fully licensed production and retail space. It's a notoriously difficult and expensive process, but something has to be done soon. Their wives are losing patience with the chaos of Meat Week, which keeps getting longer and longer.

"We're definitely looking to move into a place where we can have Meat Week every week," says Ehran. Boucherie/Charcuterie | WordReference Forums Dictionary and thread title search: WordReference Forums Quelle est la difference entre une boucherie et une charcuterie? Mercie à l'avance. Strasbourg, France UK, English In a boucherie you can buy legs of lamb, steaks, chicken breasts, veal cutlets, and other, generally unprepared, types of meat. In a charcuterie you can buy pâté, sliced ham, sausages, rillettes, pig's ears and other prepared meats. A boucherie is a butcher's. A charcuterie is more like a deli. Bonjour JazzByChas! The one who sells raw meat only = the butcher = le boucher (shop: la boucherie ) The one who prepares and/or sells specialty made from pork = delicatessen dealer (? pork butcher?) = le charcutier (shop+product sold: la charcuterie ) In France, most bouchers are also charcutiers. American English Thanks, all....this is actually helping this <<élève>> learn some basic french...

So, Agnès...a charcuterie deals only in porc, or like an American deli, all sorts of prepared meats? (hey Agnès…tout va bien ? ) Aupick, old man...doing well, I trust?0 JazzByChas said: ↑ Thanks, all....this is actually helping this <<élève>> learn some basic french... So, Agnès...a charcuterie deals only in porc, or like an American deli, all sorts of prepared meats? (hey Agnès…tout va bien ? ) Aupick, old man...doing well, I trust?0 Click to expand... no any kind of meat... Baltimore, MD, USA English Où est-ce qu'on achète du poulet/un poulet? A la boucherie ou est-ce qu'il y a un autre magasin pour acheter la volaille? Merci d'avance.

'Volailler' - you could have looked up 'poulterer' in the dictionary on peut maintenant acheter aussi un poulet dans une boucherie Baltimore, MD, USA English That's hilarious -- it never would have occurred to me to look up poulterer, not a word we use in American English! I had found "volailler", but I don't remember from the times I've spent in France people talking about going "chez le volailler" which is why I posted the thread. But you're living in France, is that what people say? in the center of France FRANCE FRENCH "volailler" is less and less used in France, just like "crémier" for instance (in another field of course) French (lower Normandy) I must be too young but I've never seen any volailler shops (?!) or heard of any. We just buy poulets at a butcher's shop (and probably on markets but I don't think a volailler will only sell poulets).

Brittany, NW France English (Midlands UK) Even in this pork-rich and pork-obsessed corner of France, our local award-winning charcuterie sells other prepared dishes such as lasagne, foie gras... But no raw meat except for pork sausages. In northern England it would be called a pork-butcher's, in the south a delicatessen. (More or less.) FRANCE FRENCH DearPrudence said: ↑ I must be too young but I've never seen any volailler shops (?!) or heard of any. Click to expand... so am I Dear Prudence, I've read it in books or seen it in old films of the 50s But, in the country side where I live, we sometimes still have those "volaillers" (exclusively volailles) in the open-market, you know what I mean? Where does one purchase raw pork? Pork chops and pork tenderloin, for example? either in a charcuterie or in a boucherie, as said above France French Charcuterie come from CHAIR CUITE. The only means of long term preservation of pork meat was salt.

This is why fresh pork meat was cooked, hence chair cuite, and charcuterie. A charcutier sells mainly cooked pork meat... and possibly other kind of food depending on his customers needs... in the center of France FRANCE FRENCH We could add that in a supermarket, the section "charcuterie" is separated from the section "boucherie", but as a shop, a "boucherie" can also sell sausages and pork, when a "charcuterie" sells sausages, pork and cooked food such as as salmon quiches ... and cooked pork meat, but can't sell beef, lambs ... Midwest USA USA English Thank you Micia93 and coursic. So would it be accurate to say that the only raw meat a person is likely to find at a charcuterie is pork? Midwest USA USA English Merci encore! (I hesitate to ask this here for fear of being told this is not the place for such a question, but can any of you suggest why turkey is not a more common meat in France? I have Oscar Mayer Oven Roasted turkey - google image it - on my sandwich at lunch nearly every day.

Last night for supper, I had roasted turkey from the deli section of our grocery store. At both Thanksgiving and Christmas, I have a stuffed turkey with all the accompaniments. It's such a common meat here. Why isn't it in France? Ou est-ce que ça commence un peu maintenant?) La charcuterie française Although charcuteries can be found in even moderate-sized towns throughout France, many French buy their charcuterie — pâtés, galantines, sausages, hams, and other prepared meat products — in packaged form from their local marché. But even in a prepackaged form, the variety available on a daily basis is large. Outside of France, the availability of genuine French charcuterie can be limited. In the United States, the situation is especially bleak. But, there is one charcuterie — Fabrique Délices — attempting to fill the void. I sat down with the principals of Fabrique Délices to discuss the business of creating genuine French charcuterie in the U.S. I met with Marc Poinsignon, President and Co-founder; Antonio Pinheiro, Chef and Co-founder; and Sébastien Espinasse, Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

While I was at Fabrique Délices, I also had the opportunity to tour the plant and see the whole production process. The following is an edited version of our conversation and the plant tour. The production process starts with the receiving of raw material through the receiving area. Depending on the nature of the item received, it is either stored in dry storage, under refrigeration, or frozen until needed. Meat products to be ground are loaded into the hopper of the grinder. Capable of handling 100 pounds of meat at once, the grinder quickly turns whole pieces into ground meat. The grinder is set so that it discharges directly into the mixer which has been positioned below the grinding head. Spices and other additional ingredients are premixed in the horizontal chopper before they are added to the meat in the mixer. The horizontal chopper is also used to emulsify those products, such as mousses, which need to be made smoother than is possible with the grinder. After processing through the mixer, the product is transferred by hand to the stuffer. The stuffer is used for more than stuffing sausages. As shown above, the stuffer provides a convenient means of filling galantines and other items prepared in terrines.

After filling a galantine, the surface of each one is leveled and the loose duck meat and skin are folded over the top. The filled molds are placed on a rack as they are completed. The whole rack will be baked at once. The stuffer can also fill molds efficiently with purees, such as these mousses. The convection oven used to bake galantines, pâtés, and mousses is large enough to cook a full rack at a time. Large kettles are used for cooking duck confit and poaching sausages. After cooking and cooling, all products are shrink-wrapped in heavy-gauge plastic to help preserve freshness and to stabilize the package. Completed products are stored in large walk-in refrigerators and freezers ready for shipment. Except for working in larger quantities, i.e., working in 100-pound lots, the process of making charcuterie at Fabrique Délices is very similar to the process used to make the same items in the home.. à la carte: How did Fabrique Délices start?

Poinsignon: Fabrique Délices was established in the early ‘80s by the owner of a number of famous San Francisco restaurants — La Bourgogne, Ernie’s, L’Etoile — to supply his restaurants. He opened it to manufacture all his meat products. He also started a bakery to supply his restaurants. A French company named Sapar France purchased the company from him. Antonio and I were working for that French company. They sent us over here to operate Fabrique Délices. That was in June of 1985. We worked for the French company until the owner put Fabrique Délices on the market. Antonio and I purchased it in 1996. We didn’t want to change everything, so we kept the company name Sapar USA, and kept the brand name Fabrique Délices. In 2002, we moved the company to our current location. à la carte: Are there problems translating French charcuterie to the American marketplace? Poinsignon: There’re not too many problems. Our products are fairly authentic and made from the same recipes we had in France. Antonio [the chef] has been in the business since he was 14 years old.

In France, he learned the traditional ways of making charcuterie. What we’re doing now and have been doing for the last 17 years is mostly the same. It’s a very authentic version of French charcuterie. There are a few recipes that have been modified, but for 90% of our products, if you brought them to France and did a blind taste test, people would not find a difference between what they buy there and our products. à la carte: Is there a temptation to create new products which fit a “California” motif? Poinsignon: Yes. You need to please your distributors. You need to please the stores because they want to offer something special. Some customers request something special and the stores want to be able to say, “Yes, we can offer that.” Then they come to us and say, “We need this new item.” And we do it. We make it happen. One example is our low-calorie pâté. We put together a “California” pâté as the answer to our customer’s questions. It is a low-calorie, all natural pâté. Also, there was a trend of vegetable pâtés and some other items. So we did those, too.

à la carte: It always seems counterintuitive when someone wants low-fat sausage or low-fat pâté since the mouth feel, part of what makes the product what it is, comes from the fat. Poinsignon: Yes, exactly, but you’ve got to be able to come up with a good product. You’re not going to come up with a country-style pâté with no fat. That’s almost impossible. You’re going to have to create a different type of product and make it the way the customer wants it. For a low-calorie product, you’re going to use chicken meat or some other kind of meat that is low in calories, plus some vegetables. You have to make sure the product has good flavor and texture. It’s not always easy. But there are also people who want traditional products and therefore ninety percent of our product line is traditional and authentic. The other ten percent is here to please the other customers. à la carte: Is there a problem getting the proper ingredients for authentic charcuterie? Pinheiro: Yes, for charcuterie, there are very specific cuts of pork for each charcuterie product. In the U.S., the way they cut the pig carcass is completely different from France.

Here we don’t have those special cuts to make specific products. We have to use different cuts, but they work. It’s not the perfect, traditional product, but it’s very, very close. à la carte: I guess the fat is different in the cheek, than it is in the back, or in the belly. Pinheiro: Exactly, the fat from the jowl or the fat from the back or the fat from the butt are all different. All of these fats are for different purposes. For example, when making a mousse with the fat from the jowl, the mousse will be very firm and not spreadable. If the fat is from the butt, the mousse will be very spreadable. So the source of the fat makes a difference. That’s the main problem with meat from the pig — the way they cut it. à la carte: Where are you getting your foie gras from? Poinsignon: It depends. We’ve been getting most of our foie gras locally from Sonoma Foie Gras, plus some additional from Canada. These have been the main sources. For the mousse, the C- and D-grade foie gras come from Hudson Valley. It depends on the season and pricing.

à la carte: It would seem that you could get the frozen Rougié foie gras from France for less money than the Hudson Valley. Poinsignon: Well, in our case, no. We buy a lot of raw material from Hudson Valley. We buy rendered fat. We buy the duck legs to make the confit. We buy the magret to smoke. We buy the duck meat for the rillettes. When you buy 20,000 pounds of product every 2 or 3 months and you ask for a good price on foie gras, they will give it to you. à la carte: If I remember correctly, the way the grades are specified by Hudson, is different from France. It’s almost more by size than quality? Poinsignon: Yes, exactly. Not just Hudson, but all producers in North America. There is no grading regulation here. An A-grade liver in France is limited to 400 or 450 grams. There’s a limit. Even if it’s perfect, if it’s overweight, it cannot be an A. Here, they found out that chefs like bigger livers, so they sell it high-priced as an A.

In France, it wouldn’t be an A. Pinheiro: Yes, you have to meet the criteria. à la carte: For my personal uses I tend to prefer the Rougié-brand livers from France. I find that the veins are smaller and easier to remove than in the Sonoma-brand liver. Plus, I can get the product for less money. Poinsignon: It’s very true. The Rougié is a great product because it’s flash frozen. The liver is removed from the freshly killed duck and within an hour it’s frozen. It’s better to use a flash-frozen fresh liver than buy a fresh liver that’s already a week and a half old. à la carte: At the restaurants I’ve worked with in France, most are using the frozen foie gras. Poinsignon: Well, that way you have availability. You keep some in your freezer. When you want to make terrines, you pull them. Otherwise, sometimes you call your supplier and you say, “I want 10 pounds of fresh foie gras.” And he says, “Well, I’m sorry, but I’m sold out.” Pinheiro: Rougié is very professional.

They have the technology, the money… Poinsignon: Rougié is a huge company. They have the people. They have the control of the farms and all the ducks. It’s number one. à la carte: Another ingredient I’ve had problems obtaining is fresh blood. Is this a problem at the commercial level? Poinsignon: No, actually we were the first to manufacture blood sausage with pork blood in the U.S. For a long time, I guess, there were restrictions and the USDA never approved a recipe with pork blood. Antonio was able to find the right blood and submit the labels. It was approved. So, our blood sausage is an authentic, true blood sausage. à la carte: What’s the difference in working with U.S. regulators versus French regulators? Poinsignon: It’s been 17 years since I’ve had direct experience with French regulators. For example, the ex-parent company, Sapar France, which produced all kinds of charcuterie — pâtés, sausages, and other products — was inspected only once in a while by the local veterinarian. That’s the same veterinarian who gives shots to the dogs, etcetera.

And they come once in a while and, of course they come from the same village, and they’re friends. The USDA is here two or three times a day. They have an office here on site. They come in the morning, they come in the afternoon. And their inspections are very thorough. à la carte: Are the inspectors a problem? Poinsignon: Some of the local inspectors are like cops. They walk in the place and if you don’t smile or give them what they want, they are going to start looking for this and that, they’re always going to find something. But the USDA has rules. We know the rules — sometimes better than some of the inspectors. So we know exactly what to do about labeling, about cooking, about refrigeration, about sanitation, about HACCP [Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points]… I mean, we know all these rules, so with the USDA we’re on the same level. It’s probably the best way. à la carte: Do most of your products have a shelf life of about 5 to 6 weeks? Poinsignon: Yes, on average, shelf life is limited. We manufacture the product, it stays here for an average of 5 to 10 days.

Then it goes to the distributor who might keep the product for maybe an average of a week to maybe 3 weeks, if things are slow. Then it gets to the store and the shelf life is really limited. So it depends on how it’s controlled and where it goes in different parts of the country. à la carte: Do distributors, rather than storing products under refrigeration, freeze them instead? Poinsignon: Yes, definitely. We have no control over how distributors handle our products. In France there are shelf-life regulations, but in the U.S. there is no control about shelf life or pull dates for charcuterie. In Europe, perishable meat products have to be pulled at 21 days. Here there is no law. There is no control about pull dates. So you find products in the stores with a date that doesn’t make any sense. Manufacturers put a three-month pull date on the package and it is already spoiled. The problem we have is the distribution chain — between us, the manufacturer, and the store — there’s no control. There’s a lot of control in our plant by the USDA, but after we ship the product, there is a lack of control.

The distributor can freeze the product and later thaw it out to sell it to a store. The store might put it in the freezer or put it in the fridge. à la carte: In France, specific types of sausages have specifications as to their ingredients. Does the U.S. have similar controls? Pinheiro: There is some limited control on which ingredients you can use and in what amounts. But for specific end products, there’s not. If we call a pâté, for example, a Parisian pâté, we can make it from whatever we want. Poinsignon: Or, something like that, yes. Here there is more control about specific ingredients. For example, for foie gras there is a regulation. If you want to call it “mousse of foie gras” or “terrine of foie gras” there is a regulation. à la carte: Even in America? Pinheiro: Yes, the same regulation as in France. For some specialty sausages there are regulations. If, for example, you use more poultry than pork then you have a different “bug” [inspection icon] that shows that it is a poultry product versus a pork product.

There is a fairly similar regulation in Europe for meat products. Where there is no regulation here is for the pull date on the product. à la carte: With something like rillettes, are you required to define what rillettes are? Espinasse: We have a product called “Rillettes du Périgord.” In France, if your label says Périgord, it has to be from the Périgord. It’s like the A.O.C. [Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée] Here, it’s acceptable to use a name like that even though it’s not from the Périgord. à la carte: Is it important to be thought of as authentic French? Does it help in the marketing of your products that the three of you are French? Espinasse: Yes. For example, I was at Larry’s Market in Seattle talking about our products. Being French and representing a French product is helpful. There were 25 people present. I had to start with the basics — what is a pâté? what is a mousse? what is foie gras? But not go into too much detail. They were very interested to learn.

We were informing the store’s staff because the staff has a lot of product to take care of, and pâté seems to be the last product they would put on the shelf. Cheese is very popular. So is smoked meat, ham, and items like that, but pâté seems to be something that people don’t think about. They’re not very comfortable with pâtés, yet. à la carte: I also think people don’t know how to eat pâté. Espinasse: Yes. They don’t know it’s cooked. Most of the time when I do demonstrations at stores, people come to see me and ask, “Is it cheese?” They don’t know what it is and what it’s made of. And sometimes doing presentations in front of people and being French is a big advantage. You know, you’re talking, you have an accent. à la carte: The accent is important? Espinasse: The accent is important. You may make people laugh, but they are focused, trying to listen to what you are telling them. My accent sometimes is not very easy to understand. And sometimes when I speak, when I am comfortable with a topic, I speak much faster — like if I was speaking in French.

All this makes it harder for people to understand me sometimes. But people end up very happy trying the product. They talk with you. They want to know where you are from. They want to know the story of the foie gras and how it’s made. It’s a very friendly atmosphere. I love to make presentations — they’re sort of fun. When I go into the room, the store people say, “It’s Sebastian, the representative from Fabrique Délices. It’s the French guy from the Périgord.” Right away the people listen to me and what I have to say. à la carte: And the accent adds a degree of authenticity? Espinasse: Yes, absolutely. I have a strong accent and I am passionate about food. When I’m making presentations, I’m not trying to sell product. I’m just passing on information. We can sell anything. But we have to keep the pitch consistent and to work for the long-term, which is the most important thing. It’s what we are trained to do — selling quality products for a long time. Also to be in high-end stores, you need to have quality and consistency.

à la carte: Do you sell strictly through distributors, or do you have some direct sales, too? Poinsignon: Yes, for example, we sell directly to the airlines if the order is large. We sell to cruise lines and airlines, direct and through distributors. Ninety percent of our business goes through distributors. We also do business with people like Sysco Foods. We have a contract with all the Sysco outlets. We receive orders on a daily basis and drop ship the products directly to their customers by express shipping. It’s a different way of distributing the product. à la carte: As a percentage of the cost of the product, isn’t shipping quite expensive? Poinsignon: If it’s overnight it’s very expensive. For small orders, the shipping alone is higher than the actual product cost. If the customer only buys 3 pounds of pâté, it’s going to cost them $50, including shipping. à la carte: Do people actually buy just 3 pounds? Poinsignon: Yes, sometimes. If a chef has vegetable pâté on his menu and he is out, he’s going to order two or three.

We’re going to ship the pâté to him and he’s going to pay his supplier. I don’t know if he’s paying for the whole shipping or not. That’s an agreement he has with his supplier. Sometimes they have a yearly contract and they might get a deal. In any case, we will charge the supplier for the freight. Definitely. à la carte: Judging by the quantity of product you produce, I expect that you ship most of the time in large quantities loaded on pallets? Poinsignon: No pallet loads. We usually ship with small, insulated containers — between 150 and 300 pounds each. That’s the most economical and the most flexible way of shipping throughout the country. In that case, the freight is about, on average, 25 to 35 cents per pound. And it’s usually delivered within 36 hours. Sometimes they deliver the next day. à la carte: So, is that by refrigerated truck rather than air freight? Poinsignon: Except for local orders, always air freight. We do a lot of air freight. We have special containers with insulation and blue ice. The boxes are packed and dropped off in the morning at the shipping company.

The customer usually gets the product the next day. So it works really well for the customers because it’s a fairly inexpensive way for them to get the product within 24 to 36 hours. à la carte: In one sense, traditional raw and poached French sausages are somewhat limited. I notice you’re adding smoking capabilities, which will broaden your range of sausages produced. Do you see adding dried sausages to the product line, also? Poinsignon: Dried sausages would be extremely hard because you need special equipment and drying rooms. You need technology that’s pretty costly. Plus, there’s a lot of local competition already. There’s a lot of people around here that already make that type of product. What we might do is produce specialty sausages — high-end, gourmet types of sausage like game sausages. That’s a possibility because we already have all the equipment required to manufacture and sell the product. And we always want to stay in the upper or high end of the market. We want to stay gourmet. © 2002, 2014 Peter Hertzmann. All rights reserved.

Daniele - Marcello's Corner - Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about charcuterie - The many types of salumi MARCELLO’S CORNER Ciao! My name is Marcello and I am a native of Tuscany, Italy. I have been involved with the art of charcuterie for almost my entire life so it is no wonder I have found my second home at Daniele, Inc. I have been working here for over three decades and have loved every minute! The best part about my job is sharing my knowledge about dry-cured meats so that everyone can enjoy them just as much as my family and I do. Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about charcuterie, but were too afraid to ask... What is dry-cured? Dry-curing is an ancient method used to preserve meat. Using minimal ingredients, air and a lot of time, meat is preserved without the use of water, fire or any other cooking method. At Daniele, Inc., after applying ingredients such as sea salt and pepper, our products are hung to dry in a temperature controlled environment. The process naturally dries out the pork resulting in delicious gourmet treats that are safe to consume.

Check out our video clip from Discovery™ Channel’s television show, How Stuff Works and see the process for yourself! What do the words charcuterie and salumi mean? Charcuterie is the French term for dry-cured meats such as prosciutto, capocollo, salame, etc. Salumi is the Italian word for charcuterie. A salumeria is a place where dried meats are sold. Do I need to cook charcuterie before eating? No. Due to the dry-curing process, Daniele, Inc. dry sausages and Del Duca® prosciuttos are completely safe to eat right from the deli or out of the package. We recommend enjoying our products at room temperature. Can I cook charcuterie? Yes you can, but you don’t have to. Daniele, Inc. dry sausages and Del Duca® prosciuttos are ready to eat right out of the package or you can use them to create yummy meals. Visit our recipe page for ideas! What’s that aroma? If you are not accustomed to eating dry-cured meats you may notice an aroma, but do not be alarmed.

Most Americans are familiar with cooked deli meats such as cooked ham, cooked turkey and pepperoni, but exposing meats to high temperatures extinguishes their aroma intensity. Dry-cured meats produce an inviting, delicious aroma. Is Prosciutto raw? Dry-cured prosciutto is not raw due to the natural process of drying out the meat. It is perfectly safe to eat right from the deli or out of the package. We recommend enjoying our products at room temperature. What ingredients are used to make Del Duca® Prosciutto? We continue using the same methods and all-natural ingredients that have been used for centuries: pork, salt and time. What type of salt is used during the dry-curing process? We use all-natural sea salt. How do you eat Prosciutto? There are numerous ways to prepare and enjoy prosciutto, including eating it right out of the package! Simple recipes include, pairing slices of prosciutto with fresh fruit or cheese. For delicious recipes visit our recipe page. How do I store my charcuterie? Always refer to the label on our products for directions on how to store.

You should see “Refrigerate After Opening” or “Keep Refrigerated.” After opening, cover areas that are exposed to air with cellophane and place in your refrigerator. How long is dry-cured meat good for after I open it? For the best flavor, we recommend enjoying our products at room temperature within the first 3 days after opening. After opening, cover areas that are exposed to air with cellophane and place in your refrigerator. Does Prosciutto contain any allergens or attributes? Our Del Duca® Prosciuttos have no allergens and are made with all-natural ingredients. They are also gluten free with no MSG added and do not contain nitrates or nitrites. All of our charcuterie, Paninos and Pepper Shooters are also gluten free with no MSG added. Where can I buy Del Duca® Prosciutto and other Daniele, Inc. Products? Our Del Duca® Prosciutto and other delicious products can be found in delis or the deli area of your local supermarket and club stores. You can also visit our online store and have our products delivered to you!

Don’t forget to check out the recipe page for quick and easy ideas on how you can create a mouth-watering experience. What part of the pig is used to make prosciutto? Prosciutto is crafted using the rear leg of a mature pig. Where do Daniele, Inc. pigs come from? Our pigs are raised on North American family farms. Why is Prosciutto generally more expensive than other hams? While other hams are manufactured using preservatives, our Del Duca® Prosciuttos are hand-crafted using only pork, salt and time – lots of time! During the dry-curing process, the Del Duca® Prosciuttos are constantly checked by our expert staff. The process is lengthy but it ensures every slice has a consistently sweet – never – salty taste. Only when they are aged to perfection do we allow them be sliced and shipped to your local market for enjoyment! What is Del Duca® Jamón Serrano Prosciutto? Del Duca® Jamón Serrano is a Spanish-Style dry-cured ham. It is the perfect addition to tapas and excellent when paired with cheese or olives.

Don’t forget to check out the recipe page for quick and easy ideas on how you can create a mouth-watering experience. How do you slice Prosciutto? 1. Place your prosciutto in a prosciutto holder (also known as a morsa). Align the prosciutto so you are able to cut across, rather than along, the grain of the meat. 2. Lay your knife along the top of the piece of prosciutto. The knife should be as close as possible to the edge of the meat to ensure the thinnest slice possible. 3. Slice down through the prosciutto, pulling the knife toward you as you go. Ideally, you should cut through the meat in a single slice rather than sawing back and forth. 4. Pick up your slice of prosciutto as soon as you have cut it free from the whole prosciutto. Lay it flat on a piece of parchment paper. 5. Repeat the process until you have the desired amount of prosciutto slices. Lay each slice flat in between pieces of parchment paper to avoid having your slices tangled or torn. What are the health benefits of Prosciutto?

Prosciutto contains high concentrations of B vitamins and minerals, like iron, zinc, selenium and magnesium. Just like milk and eggs, prosciutto is an excellent source of amino acids which we need to include in our regular diet because our bodies cannot naturally produce them. Prosciutto is also a good source of protein and due to the lengthy maturation process, proteins are lighter and easier to digest. How do you know dry-cured salame is safe to eat? At Daniele, Inc. food safety is our number one priority. We use multiple hurdle technology methods (food preservation methods) to ensure pathogens (microorganisms) are controlled. The hurdles include low pH, low water activity, high salt concentration, addition of nitrates/nitrites and the addition of lactic acid starter cultures. When all these hurdles are combined, it becomes extremely difficult for pathogens to overcome, making our dry-cured salames safe and ready to eat right out of the package! At what temperature should I serve charcuterie? Charcuterie is best when served at room temperature. If you have previously stored your charcuterie in a refrigerator, allow it to sit for 10 to 20 minutes or until room temperature is met before serving.

The many types In the Charcuterie: The Fatted Calf's Guide to Making Sausage, Salumi, Pates, Roasts, Confits, and Other Meaty Goods: Amazon.co.uk: Taylor Boetticher, Toponia Miller: 9781607743439: Books Product Description Review "No one in America makes more diverse charcuterie, more consistently, using better product than the Fatted Calf. And no American has ever written a more comprehensive book on the subject--this is a must-read." --Patrick Martins, founder of Slow Food USA and the Heritage Radio Network, president of Heritage Foods USA "If you love chopping, grinding, salting, stuffing, and curing--or anything deliciously handmade--then this is the book for you! Taylor and Toponia show you how to make a wide array of meaty goods, from simple gingery duck legs to a hunter-style sausage." --April Bloomfield, chef/owner of the Spotted Pig, the Breslin, and the John Dory Oyster Bar, and author of "A Girl and Her Pig" "This book is incredibly well written.

The charcuterie recipes are outstanding, and Taylor and Toponia's clear instruction make the process less intimidating and more accessible. The other recipes are very inspired--their diverse flavors and preparations will take you on a great little culinary odyssey." --Traci Des Jardins, chef/owner of Jardiniere and Mijita Cocina "With "In the Charcuterie," Taylor and Toponia have created the New American cured meat manifesto. Like a plump, overstuffed sausage, this incredible piece of work--the product of years of experience and a lifetime of passion--is brimming with useable, accessible recipes that are fit for the home cook and the professional chef alike. This book sets the bar for neotraditional charcuterie makers." --Matt Jennings, chef/owner of Farmstead "To me, there is nothing more exhilarating than butchering, cooking, and preserving meat. Understanding the process and respecting the ingredients is key, and it's clear from" In the Charcuterie" that Taylor and Toponia have devoted their lives to mastering this craft.

I always emphasize the importance of butchery to my cooks...now I can just buy them this book!" --Marc Vetri, chef/owner of Vetri and author of "Rustic Italian "A Best Cookbook of 2013"--Sunset "No one in America makes more diverse charcuterie, more consistently, using better product than the Fatted Calf. And no American has ever written a more comprehensive book on the subject--this is a must-read." --Patrick Martins, founder of Slow Food USA and the Heritage Radio Network, president of Heritage Foods USA "If you love chopping, grinding, salting, stuffing, and curing--or anything deliciously handmade--then this is the book for you! Taylor and Toponia show you how to make a wide array of meaty goods, from simple gingery duck legs to a hunter-style sausage." --April Bloomfield, chef/owner of the Spotted Pig, the Breslin, and the John Dory Oyster Bar, and author of "A Girl and Her Pig" "This book is incredibly well written. The charcuterie recipes are outstanding, and Taylor and Toponia's clear instruction make the process less intimidating and more accessible.

The other recipes are very inspired--their diverse flavors and preparations will take you on a great little culinary odyssey." --Traci Des Jardins, chef/owner of JardiniEre and Mijita Cocina "With "In the Charcuterie," Taylor and Toponia have created the New American cured meat manifesto. Like a plump, overstuffed sausage, this incredible piece of work--the product of years of experience and a lifetime of passion--is brimming with useable, accessible recipes that are fit for the home cook and the professional chef alike. This book sets the bar for neotraditional charcuterie makers." --Matt Jennings, chef/owner of Farmstead "To me, there is nothing more exhilarating than butchering, cooking, and preserving meat. Understanding the process and respecting the ingredients is key, and it's clear from" In the Charcuterie" that Taylor and Toponia have devoted their lives to mastering this craft.

I always emphasize the importance of butchery to my cooks...now I can just buy them this book!" --Marc Vetri, chef/owner of Vetri and author of "Rustic Italian Food" and "Il Viaggio di Vetri" "One of the best-known of the new charcutiers is the Bay Area's Fatted Calf, so it's probably only reasonable that when founders Taylor Boetticher and Toponia Miller wrote a cookbook that they should call it "In the Charcuterie, " despite the fact that that title sells the book short. "In the Charcuterie "is much more than a guide to hams and "salumi." In reality, it's nothing less than a thorough overview of our growing infatuation with good meat. There are guides to choosing cuts, to parsing the differences among the heritage breeds and to DIY butchery large and small. And, of course, there's lots of good information on how to cook meat.

But where the book really shines -- and at least partially justifies the title -- are on the kinds of quick-cooked charcuterie items that are easily approachable by any reasonably ambitious home cook: pAtEs, terrines, confits and meat pickles." --LA Times A Best Cookbook of 2013 Sunset No one in America makes more diverse charcuterie, more consistently, using better product than the Fatted Calf. And no American has ever written a more comprehensive book on the subject this is a must-read. Patrick Martins, founder of Slow Food USA and the Heritage Radio Network, president of Heritage Foods USA If you love chopping, grinding, salting, stuffing, and curing or anything deliciously handmade then this is the book for you! Taylor and Toponia show you how to make a wide array of meaty goods, from simple gingery duck legs to a hunter-style sausage. April Bloomfield, chef/owner of the Spotted Pig, the Breslin, and the John Dory Oyster Bar, and author of "A Girl and Her Pig" This book is incredibly well written. The charcuterie recipes are outstanding, and Taylor and Toponia s clear instruction make the process less intimidating and more accessible.

The other recipes are very inspired their diverse flavors and preparations will take you on a great little culinary odyssey. Traci Des Jardins, chef/owner of Jardiniere and Mijita Cocina With "In the Charcuterie," Taylor and Toponia have created the New American cured meat manifesto. Like a plump, overstuffed sausage, this incredible piece of work the product of years of experience and a lifetime of passion is brimming with useable, accessible recipes that are fit for the home cook and the professional chef alike. This book sets the bar for neotraditional charcuterie makers. Matt Jennings, chef/owner of Farmstead To me, there is nothing more exhilarating than butchering, cooking, and preserving meat. Understanding the process and respecting the ingredients is key, and it s clear from" In the Charcuterie" that Taylor and Toponia have devoted their lives to mastering this craft. I always emphasize the importance of butchery to my cooks...now I can just buy them this book!

Marc Vetri, chef/owner of Vetri and author of "Rustic Italian Food" and "Il Viaggio di Vetri" "One of the best-known of the new charcutiers is the Bay Area's Fatted Calf, so it's probably only reasonable that when founders Taylor Boetticher and Toponia Miller wrote a cookbook that they should call it "In the Charcuterie, " despite the fact that that title sells the book short. "In the Charcuterie "is much more than a guide to hams and "salumi." In reality, it's nothing less than a thorough overview of our growing infatuation with good meat. There are guides to choosing cuts, to parsing the differences among the heritage breeds and to DIY butchery large and small. And, of course, there's lots of good information on how to cook meat.

But where the book really shines and at least partially justifies the title are on the kinds of quick-cooked charcuterie items that are easily approachable by any reasonably ambitious home cook: pates, terrines, confits and meat pickles." LA Times" About the Author TAYLOR BOETTICHER and TOPONIA MILLER are the co-owners and co-founders of the Fatted Calf Charcuterie, which opened in 2003 and now has shops in Napa and San Francisco, a stall in the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, and a mail-order store. The couple has been featured in "The New York Times," "Food & Wine," and "Saveur," where the Fatted Calf was included in the editors annual list of their 100 favorite food items and trends. Visit " What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?

Question: What does a charcutier sell?
Answer: Meat