ove over bacon. For years, you've hogged the spotlight, popping up in everything from marmalade and mayonnaise to cocktails and even chocolate bars.
It's not that we love you any less. You pair perfectly with pancakes; you are the BLT's reason for being. But, like addicts, we need something else to achieve that porcine-induced high -- and we may have found it in the burgeoning art of American charcuterie and salumi.
Thanks to the Italian branch of cured and preserved meat products, we've become increasingly swine savvy in recent years, and restaurants are partly to blame -- or credit.
Countless Bay Area eateries now feature charcuterie or salumi platters as an appetizer course. Many chefs make their own sausages in-house; a handful of others are delving into curing meat, a lengthy process that can take several months.
It's a development that thrills Oakland-based chef and cookbook author Victoria Wise. Her seminal cookbook "American Charcuterie" (Penguin Books, 1983) featured recipes from Pig by the Tail, her charcuterie in Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto. Last year, she published "Sausage" (Ten Speed Press, 176 pp., $23).
"It's an amazing thing how many restaurants do charcuterie now," says Wise, who admits she was probably ahead of her time.
Even Berkeley's Gather restaurant offers a vegan charcuterie platter, notes Wise. The nonmeat approach is the antithesis of what charcuterie is all about, she says, "But it shows you how popular charcuterie has become."
Even more popular than the French-based charcuterie, with its terrines, rillettes and pates, is salumi, which isn't surprising, given Italian food is one of the most popular ethnic cuisines in the United States.
Salumi, or cured meats, should not be confused with salami; salami, which are cured sausages, are simply a subset of the salumi genre.
Chef Chris Cosentino and his business partner, Mark Pastore, own Boccalone Salumeria in San Francisco's Ferry Building. The 2-year-old shop grew out of the success of the house-cured meats served at Incanto, their Noe Valley restaurant. Both liken the increased interest in salumi to the growth of wine connoisseurship in recent years. In the same way that people are suddenly so conscious of grape varietals and vineyard terroir, Cosentino says, "Now people know what breed of pig is used and where the meat's from."
Still, there are some less familiar salumi popping up on menus, which are worth exploring in all their porky glory. At Le Papillon in San Jose, dishes feature guanciale (pronounced gwan-cha-lay), an unsmoked Italian bacon made with pig jowls with a distinct animal taste. Guanciale stars at Oakland's Hudson brasserie, too, where it's paired with wild nettles atop wood-fired pizzas.
In Italy, guanciale is the traditional ingredient in spaghetti carbonara. Here, many cooks substitute pancetta, a bacon made with pork belly, because it's easier to find, but it does change the flavor of the dish to some degree.
Lardo has a name that makes some squeamish. It's pork backfat, usually cured with rosemary and other herbs and spices. A few restaurants that specialize in artisan pizzas use it as a topping. Daniel Patterson's Plum in Oakland serves it tossed with potatoes. A house-made lardo is also an option on the charcuterie platter at Martin's West in Redwood City.
Pastore is a big fan of 'nduja (pronounced in-doo-ya), a spicy, spreadable salume that originates from Italy's Calabria region.
"'Nduja doesn't require mad knife skills to use it," Pastore says. "As far as anything being the 'next bacon,' it's got a wide appeal and versatility."
Despite being difficult to say, 'nduja is probably the easiest salume for home cooks to use -- or make. Oakland's Rosetta Costantino, author of "My Calabria" (W.W. Norton, 396 pp., $35), loves the mixture of fatty pork blended with a generous amount of red pepper, which results in a creamy, spreadable -- and fiery red -- sausage, perfect for spreading on bread as an antipasto.
It's also sold, ready made, at a number of Bay Area shops, including Boccalone. Pastore recommends rubbing it under the skin of chicken, using it with seafood or as a base for a tomato sauce. At Incanto, Cosentino even uses the spicy 'nduja in chocolate ice cream.
Take that, bacon chocolate bar.
Sources
Cafe Rouge: Find a wide array of fresh sausages, pates and cured meats at the small butcher shop adjacent to this Berkeley brasserie. Details: 1782 4th St., Berkeley; 510-525-1440,
www.caferouge.net.Dittmer's: This 33-year-old Mountain View butcher shop is an institution. Their specialty is fresh sausages and house-smoked German charcuterie, but they also carry salumi and French charcuterie. A fire in January forced the shop's closure and rebuilding efforts are under way. Keep tabs on the progress at
www.dittmers.com.
Pasta Shop: Find an assortment of house-made charcuterie as well as Italian prosciutto, Spanish hams and American artisanal salume. The Oakland shop also carries 'nduja. Details: 5655 College Ave., Oakland; 1786 4th St., Berkeley;
http://rockridgemarkethall.com.
Boccalone: Find a wide variety of locally made Italian salumi and fresh sausages. Not sure what you want? For $3.50, try the salumi cone, a sampler of several different meats. Details: San Francisco Ferry Building Marketplace;
www.boccalone.com.
Fatted Calf: This recently opened outpost of the Napa-based charcuterie shop offers fresh sausages, salumi, pates and confits. They also offer classes on do-it-yourself butchery and charcuterie. Details: 320 Fell St., San Francisco;
www.fattedcalf.com.
A Salumi Sampling
Capocollo: An air-dried, thinly sliced meat made from the neck and loin of a pig.Guanciale: Similar in flavor to pancetta, guanciale is a fattier pork product made from the animal's cheeks or jowls. The meat is buried in salt for a week, then air-dried for two months.
Lardo: This back fat resembles the creamy fat on a slice of prosciutto. It's salted, then air dried.
'Nduja: A uniquely Calabrian dish, this spreadable, smoked pork is made from fatty pork meat and peppers.
Pancetta: Like bacon, pancetta is made from whole pork belly, cured in salt, then air-dried.
Prosciutto: This Italian cured ham is made from the pig's hind leg or thigh.
Sopressata: This dry, cured sausage -- and its cousin salsiccia -- is made from the pork loin and fat.
Spalla: Cured much like prosciutto, this pork product is leaner and made from the shoulder, not the thigh.
-- Source: "My Calabria" by Rosetta Costantino (W.W. Norton, 2010)
