scott buer B o l z a n o A r t is a n M e at s, W I Bolzano is a Germanic town in northern Italy that Scott visited. The name is fitting, as Bolzano Meats is a pastiche of a Milwaukee boy’s Germanic surroundings and his Italian culinary curiosity. It is also the town where they found a man from the Bronze Age frozen in the Alps. I like this parallel even more. Out of a turgid food culture of factory farming and low-grade lagers melts a man of ancient knowledge and old-fashioned ideals. Mustachioed and fastidiously sincere, he is both of Milwaukee and apart from it, like a man just emerged from a glacier. I’m a big food-science geek, so I was curing at home for a long time. And I had previous experience in quality control at a rat poison company. So, between those two things, I thought I could do this. I bought an armoire from Home Depot and controlled the humidity with a pan of salt water. If it was too humid, I put the dehumidifier in the basement. That worked pretty well. I used a fan from inside a computer because they’re free and they never break. I used the plug from an old broken cell phone charger, stripped the wires and tied them together. That provided airflow. We have eight products. We’re basically making prosciutto out of all the cuts. Yes, prosciutto is a ham, but I call it that because we’re curing whole muscles until they’re ready to eat, shelf stable. Prosciutto you don't need to cook or refrigerate. We use the whole hog except for the front hock, but I’m working on that. We’re not doing sausage, we are only aging whole muscles. So any bits left over are waste, as far as the company is concerned. Restaurants can always wing what they’re doing. But I’ve got to know exactly what I'm making. I had to go through so many more regulations than any restaurant, that I think it’s a good thing to leave plants to do it. I’m not really cool with the illegal curing. I don’t add any cultures. There’s good mold and bad
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