Charcuterie 2013

A S UPPL E ME NT TO 2013-14 Edition

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie

Refresh your counter with an inspiring mix of Continental classics and new-wave British artisan charcuterie

SALAMI CHORIZO PIES PATÉS TERRINES RILLETTES AIR-DRIED HAMS BACON SMOKED FISH SAUSAGES TURKEY GAME BLACK PUDDINGS COOKED HAMS IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Parma Ham A Food for Everyone

Parma Ham is a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) product and is 100% natural. The drying process that Parma Ham goes through creates a ham that is very low in fat content, with many mineral salts, vitamins and easily digestible proteins. This means that Parma Ham is truly a food for everyone.

Parma Ham wrapped Cheese Straws Makes 15-20 straws 150g ready-rolled puff pastry 1 egg, beaten 2 tbsp sesame seeds 50g Parmigiano Reggiano 1 tsp black pepper 10 slices Parma Ham, halved

• Brush strips of pastry with beaten egg. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, grated Parmigiano Reggiano and black pepper. Chill, twist each strip, and cook for 7-10 minutes until golden • Cool before wrapping Parma Ham around each straw

Parma Ham Blinis Makes 20 Blinis 125g cream cheese 1 tsp black pepper 20 cocktail blinis 20 basil leaves

Pesto 10 slices Parma Ham, halved

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Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

www.prosciuttodiparma.com

• Mix cream cheese and black pepper. Cover and leave in the fridge until needed • Spread a little peppered cream cheese over each blini, press a basil leaf into the cheese and top with a little pesto before finishing with half a slice of Parma Ham

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

OPINION

sold with flair by knowledgeable independents, not picked up and dropped by supermarkets.

Charcuterie in all its forms doesn’t just fit perfectly Mick Whitworth with the classic deli ethos, it also captures the mood of the moment. As Rufus Carter of paté-maker Patchwork told me: “There’s a new generation of shoppers coming through, and for them, self-assembly meals are really important.” With small kitchens and little time after scratch-cooking, even for dinner parties, says Carter, what better than to buy an entire meal of meats, olives and cheese from the serveover? Go home, open the wine and you’re ready to start entertaining.

If you’re responsible for the chilled food selection in a deli, farm shop or food hall, take an honest look at early a decade ago, when I first started writing for your cooked and cured meats selection Fine Food Digest, I was told there and ask if you’re really doing it justice. were two crucial categories for any If the answer is no, it’s time to go delicatessen: cheese and charcuterie.

We have an on a voyage of discovery – or perhaps It made a lot of sense. After all, it’s hard emerging breed rediscovery – to put charcuterie back at to picture a “proper” deli without whole salamis and air-dried hams hanging behind of British artisan the heart of your fine food offer. After all, that’s exactly what Harrods has a counter stuffed with earthy-looking charcutiers who done (see pages 4-5). cheeses, home-cooked meats, rustic patés Look at the companies featured and wobbly-crusted cutting pies. deserve to be in this guide, from Italian salami star In the intervening years, I’ve seen the supported and Negroni to new British start-ups like speciality cheese section spread like a sustained Creeside Charcuterie, and you’ll find healthy bloom of Penicillium candidum a wealth of hand-crafted meaty treats through the serveover. Now that ‘local’ with clear provenance and a backis one of the key sales messages for any story that should make selling easy. Think about retailer, it’s a no-brainer: stick seven or eight of these how you can convey some of that foodie excitement cheeses in your serveover and lo and behold, you are a to your shoppers, and stop them grabbing the first ‘local food store’. pre-packed chorizo picante they see in Waitrose.

But in too many chilled counters, the expansion of Why not run comparative tastings of, say, a speciality cheeses has come at the expense of charcuterie.

Parma from Italy, a Serrano from Spain and a British Most shop owners can talk to me for half an hour about air-dried ham from Deli Farm, Trealy Farm or Forest their favourite regional cheese-makers, yet when I ask who Pig? makes their salamis I’m often told: “I’m not sure – we get Offer more samples on the counter, make it from a wholesaler.” simple tapas suggestions, highlight a product of Worse than this, I have to admit the choice of the week and give those all important back-stories charcuterie in some supermarkets, particularly Waitrose, is via blackboards, leaflets and meet-the-producer better than the choice in many delis, farm shops and food sessions. halls.

All of this can add incremental sales to the This is crazy, and not just because charcuterie in all its deli, contributing to the growth of a new British forms – from British classics like haslet, corned beef and artisan food sector and taking ownership of classic pork pies to all those intriguing, knobbly Mediterreanean Continental salamis and hams out of supermarkets salamis – should be a mainstay of any speciality store. and back where it belongs.

The bigger issue is that we have an emerging breed of British artisan charcutiers who, just like the up-and-coming Mick Whitworth is editor of Fine Food Digest. cheese-makers of the ’70, ’80s and ‘90s, deserve to be supported and sustained. And “sustained” means being editorial@finefoodworld.co.uk

A voyage of rediscovery

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Look who’s supporting charcuterie in 2013-14 At FFD, we think it’s time for fine food stores to refresh and rejuvinate their charcuterie offer, using the arrival of new British artisan producers to create fresh interest in the whole section.

And we’re not alone. Eight leading companies in the sector, including iconic retailer Harrods, have sponsored this special supplement to FFD, and are also supporting a new charcuterie section appearing in FFD throughout the coming year.

With their support, we’ll be running a charcuterie trade event at Harrogate Speciality Food Show, we’re producing a Charcuterie Map of Britain for display in-store, and our publisher, the Guild of Fine Food, is introducing a new Charcuterie Product of the Year award at Great Taste 2013.

If you’re a producer launching new charcuterie lines, or a retailer finding new ways to promote this section in-store, why not let us know? editorial@finefoodworld.co.uk

A S U P P LE M E N T T O

EDITORIAL editorial@finefoodworld.co.uk Editor: Mick Whitworth Assistant editor: Michael Lane Art director: Mark Windsor

ADVERTISING advertise@finefoodworld.co.uk Sales manager: Sally Coley Advertisement sales: Becky Stacey, Gavin Weeks Published by Great Taste Publications Ltd and the Guild of Fine Food Ltd GENERAL ENQUIRIES Tel: 01963 824464 Fax: 01963 824651 info@finefoodworld.co.uk www.finefoodworld.co.uk Guild of Fine Food, Guild House, 23b Kingsmead Business Park, Shaftesbury Rd, Gillingham, SP8 5FB UK Fine Food Digest is published 11 times a year and is available on subscription for £45pa inclusive of post and packing.

Printed by: Advent Colour, Hants, UK

Inside: • How Harrods overhauled its charcuterie range – PAGES 4-5 • Guide to producers & suppliers – pages 7-29 • Ham slicing skills – pages 30-31 A supplement to Fine Food Digest

© Great Taste Publications Ltd and The Guild of Fine Food Ltd 2013. Reproduction of whole or part of this magazine without the publisher’s prior permission is prohibited. The opinions expressed in articles and advertisements are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. The publisher cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations.

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

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Shopping Harrods is co-sponsoring FFD’s 2013-14 charcuterie trade promotion after overhauling its range late last year. Buyer Bernadette Lalonde tells MICK WHITWORTH how she shopped her way round Europe for inspiration.

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hen the UK’s biggest and best-known department store decides to revamp a section of its iconic food hall, it doesn’t do the job by halves.

Chilled foods buyer Bernadette Lalonde spent a fair slice of 2012 scouring Britain, the Continent and even New York with Harrods’ product developers for ideas to reinvigorate a range that, according to Harrods’ food boss Bruce Langlands, had become a bit predictable.

“Charcuterie is an area we love,” he says, “but, to be honest, I thought our offer was quite boring.

So I challenged the team last year to refresh the range, and they really picked the idea up and ran with it.”

Lalonde clearly agreed with Langlands’ assessment of the section, which runs almost the full length of Harrods’ fresh food hall. “For me, the charcuterie counter looked quite old-fashioned,” she says. “We hadn’t moved forward for a long time. So it was time for me to do a lot of shopping!”

Crisscrossing the Continent, Lalonde found each country not only had its own specialities but was reluctant to entertain cured meats from elsewhere. “If you go to La Boqueria market in Barcelona, for example, they’re not selling charcuterie that isn’t Spanish. In France, you’ll see specialities like pig’s trotters, Andouille and cooked knuckles, but it’s mostly about saucisson.”

As one of London’s top five tourist attractions, Harrods can afford to take a broader approach – within reason. “I would love to do every speciality from every country,” says Lalonde, “but I don’t have the space.

“For us, Germany is about sausages, and each region has its own speciality. Our key German lines are Frankfurter and Vienna sausages, and the producer we use is a company that’s still in the hands of its founding family after 12 generations.

“Spain is more about ham – particularly the Iberico. We did

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Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

bring in other things, like sobrasada [spreadable chorizo] and morcilla [blood sausage], but it’s really about ham.”

Most self-respecting delis will sell at least one Spanish ham. Harrods stocks Serranos from Terruel and Trevalez.

But it’s with Ibérico de belotta, the premium air-dried ham from freeroaming, acorn-fed pigs, that Harrods comes into its own. The store is in the unique position of actively promoting many luxuries, from food to watches, as “the most expensive in the world”, and Lalonde says: “I’m sure I’ve got the most expensive Ibérico in London.

“We’ve gone with 5J, from Jabugo.

It retails a £245 a kilo – although we price it per 100g, because I don’t want to scare people too much! – but we have become a destination store for

5J. We even had one customer who ordered 15 legs in one day.”

The Spanish may be famous for Ibérico but Italians are “the kings of charcuterie”, according to Lalonde.

Here, too, the starting point is cured ham, and while Harrods carries a regular, good quality prosciutto for the everyday shopper, she says: “We also do a specific Parma from Slega, a family business run by two brothers in Langhirano. They specially select legs for us that have been matured for a minimum of 28 months.

“With San Daniele, again we have specific ages – the basic 16-month, then exclusive 36-month, four year and five year hams.”

The flavour of this longer-aged San Daniele is “a lot more intense, a bit more savoury than the sweeter,

Bernadette Lalonde: ‘I would love to do every speciality from every country, but I don’t have the space’

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Image: Isabelle Plasschaert

Forest Pig is the first British salami-maker to break into Harrods’ food hall

for ideas

CHARCUTERIE RETAILING younger hams” says Lalonde, “and the colour is a much deeper red, rather than pale pink”.

The same producer also produces a cooked San Daniele ham exclusively for Harrods, using the same legs.

“The Consorzio del Prosciutto di San Daniele would throw their hands up and say ‘No!’ if he actually called it San Daniele,” says Lalonde, “so it’s just labelled as ‘Prosciutto San Cotto’.

Italy is also the home of salami, and Lalonde’s “shopping trip” proved an eye-opener. “There were so many types in Italy I had never seen before.

“Everything on our counter looked very much the same, and I think we had lost touch with what salami should be about – the different sizes, shapes and textures.” So she has added varieties such as coglioni di mulo (“donkey’s balls”) and palle de nonno (“granddad’s balls”), which don’t just add a dash of saucy spice to the selection but give it real eyeappeal.

Then we come to the Brits, where it’s becoming a game of two halves: traditional English hams and cooked meats, and the new breed of Continental-style producers, many of which are featured in this guide.

“People come to us because they know they can get traditional English ham, carved as thick or as thin as they want,” says Lalonde. “We’ve worked with Dukeshill ham and Alderton ham for many years, and we also stock Adlington turkey, from Warwickshire.

“We do whole ham and half-hams, but we don’t sell British charcuterie as many as we until last year, and used to, and I do Salami varieties Lalonde was “quite wonder how long worried” about such as coglioni di it will last. It’s quite how it would go difficult to get a mulo (‘donkey’s down, but she point of difference made her first move balls’) don’t just these days, because in November with there are a lot of add a dash of salamis and coppa suppliers out there saucy spice to the from Forest Pig (see and society has page 12), which selection but give it got used to this rears its pigs in the wet, packaged real eye-appeal Wyre Forest. While ham they get in Harrods’ shoppers supermarkets.” continue to raise an Harrods had not eyebrow about salami made outside really engaged with the new wave of Italy or Spain, she says Forest Pig’s products sell well whenever co-owner Jeremy Levell comes down from Worcestershire to run a tasting session.

“It’s all about convincing the customer,” says Lalonde, adding: “There are a lot of British people out there trying to do the Continental stuff, but it’s all about how they do it.

Some of them are using technology to make the product quickly, and it’s not hung in cellars or aged for long enough. Forest Pig have it right. They went over to Tuscany to learn how to make salami properly. So they have the quality, but also the British story behind it, and that’s what people want.”

Harrods may stock London’s most expensive Ibérico, but alongside the luxury buyers it also wants to attract Bruce Langlands: ‘Our offer was and retain everyday foodies. So price quite boring, so I challenged the is another issue British producers team to refresh the range’ need to address, and seeing the

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A supplement to Fine Food Digest

What’s new in Harrods food hall?

• Copocollo Di Martina Franca – a traditional salami from Salumificio Santoro in Cisternino, in southern Italy’s Puglia region. The salami is dry salted for 10 days then washed in vino cotto (cooked red wine).

Smoked over Macedonian oak, almond husk and Mediterranean herbs, it is cured for around six months, giving it a delicate, slightly tangy flavour with a toasted aroma.

• Bellota Sobrasada – from the producer of Senorio Ibérico bellota ham. Originating in the Balearic isles, Sobrasada is a spiced paste of cured pork and pimento, like a spreadable chorizo.

• Hundok Mangalica ham – made from Hungary’s indigenous Mangalica pig, most notable for its curly sheep-like fleece. A rare breed that faced extinction until recently, the Mangalica is one of the fattiest pigs in the world, with only 3035% of lean meat on the carcass compared to over 50% in modern commercial breeds. But the result is some of the tastiest ham in the world, similar to Ibérico.

store purely as a destination for the super-rich is a mistake.

“People have seen Harrods either as a place they can’t afford or a place for tourists,” says Lalonde,” but we’re actually more competitive price-wise than people realise. And I’ve had British producers coming to me, wanting to charge me the same price that our Spanish and Italian charcuterie would retail for. Some of them really do need to go back to the drawing board on their costs.”

Food director Bruce Langlands agrees. “No matter where they sit on the income scale, customers are cute. The money in their pocket is really important to them. If they can see that a product has only travelled 70 miles, rather than 1,000 miles, they won’t accept paying more unless it’s really offering something different.”

British charcuterie has “come on leaps and bounds”, he says, but it has also come from nowhere in just a few years, so consumers raised on French, German, Spanish and Italian charcuterie will take a while to get on board – especially if prices look too rich. “There’s a huge job to be done in the marketplace, he says, adding: “We’re a quintessentially British retailer, and we always want to find British producers with a great product. But the marriage made in heaven in producers that have a great product and are really commercial.” www.harrods.com

Bernadette Lalonde has picked specialities from across Europe, including (top to bottom) saucisson from France, Vienna sausages from Germany and Dukeshill York ham from England

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

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New Charcuterie from dell’ami Good value, Great taste & Interesting stories Often when we are with our Italian olive growers, or Spanish oil producers, we come across local delicacies or terrific local producers, so we have decided to bring some of these treats to our customers back home. dell’ami’s new charcuterie range brings to you artisan Salamis & Coppa, Salchichón & Chorizo; Morcilla & Fuet; Prosciutto & Bresaola, Serrano & Ibérico from around the Mediterranean. And this is just the start, there is lots more to be excited about....

For more information or a copy of our latest brochure, please email info@dellami.co.uk or call 0207 819 6001

Available from April 2013 Exclusively from:

Cheese Cellar

44-54 Stewarts Road, London, SW8 4DF Tel: South – 0207 819 6001 Central – 01905 829 830 6

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

Dell Ami Charcuterie Ad 236x321.indd 1

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

08/02/2013 15:25

PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS Turkey’s for life, not just for Christmas Adlington www.adlingtonltd.com

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od Adlington is out to challenge consumer perceptions that the only good turkey is a Christmas turkey.

Despite selling thousands of premium whole birds and crowns each December through butchers, farm shops and other outlets, it’s the other 11 months of the year that concern Adlington, whose family has been rearing, cooking and smoking poultry in the Warwickshire countryside for three generations.

“There’s no question that, aside from at Christmas, we sell a ridiculously low amount of turkey throughout the year in this country,” says Adlington, pointing out that turkey is not only a flavoursome, healthy meat but a natural for any deli-café’s sandwich menu.

His family firm started producing Christmas turkeys in the 1950s and now rears 9,500 oat-fed, game-hung birds for the festive market each year.

But Adlington says it’s tough to make turkeys pay year-round unless you are also producing a large proportion of your own feed, so, for the rest of the

year, he now buys barn-reared birds from an East Anglian arable farmer, and focuses on adding value to these by careful cooking, marinating and smoking.

Adlington’s key products for the fine food sector are smoked turkey and chicken in a variety of formats, including his flagship boneless oak smoked turkey for slicing on the deli counter. Using all-natural ingredients,

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There’s no question that, aside from Christmas, we sell a ridiculously low amount of turkey in this country

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this turkey is brined for around five days before being smoked slowly over wood chips for 10-12 hours.

“Our cooked and smoked products sit very well together in the counter,” Rod Adlington says. “Delis that take it find they become destinations, because people will keep coming back for it.”

Adlington has collected a string of Great Taste awards in recent years but

there is still more to be done. He says producers need to work in tandem with retailers to make consumers more aware of how good top-end turkey can be, because expectations have been driven down by bland, lifeless, watery supermarket pap.

“Other than at Christmas, turkey is seen as a processed product,” he says.

“The problem is, it’s a big piece of protein that will soak up a lot of water if you want it too – you are talking 35-40% water in some supermarket turkey – and it then requires more e-numbers and flavourings to get it to taste of anything.

“Ours is British, barn-reared turkey, produced with texture and flavour in mind. And we feel there’s a huge gap in the market for it, because everything else is rubbish. There’s no middle ground.”

Not that Adlington recommends a completely unprocessed bird for the deli market. His company has developed the Arden Forest brand of “very lightly processed” poultry for delis, which has been “lightly tumbled in a blend of sugars” before being formed into a naturallooking shape. It’s not pumped with water supermarket-style – “It’s more

Bray’s Cottage Pork Pies www.perfectpie.co.uk

Sarah Pettegree’s Bray’s Cottage pies have a coarse texture, rounded flavour, biscuity crust – and no jelly

Based in rural north Norfolk, where stockists include stately home Holkham Hall, Bray’s Cottage is an artisan producer of pies appealing to the “more sophisticated, contemporary consumer”.

Alongside year-round recipes with ingredients such as chorizo or onion marmalade come seasonal variations such as wild garlic for the Spring and a prune & brandy recipe for Winter.

All are made with local, outdoor-reared pork, coarsely ground for a texture not found in massproduced pies. “And we put a little dry cured bacon in, which gives smoky undertones,” says Bray’s Cottage founder Sarah Pettegree.

Now six years old, the business has grown 80%

Cannon & Cannon www.cannonandcannon.com

Founded in 2010 with a retail stall at London’s Borough Market, Cannon & Cannon wholesales British charcuterie and cured meats to fine food stores, restaurants and pubs throughout the UK. Its range includes cold-smoked mutton and alpaca from Dorset, fiery Sean (left) and Joe Cannon: choosing the best British charcutiers A supplement to Fine Food Digest

massaged than processed,” he says – but will stand up better to display in the chilled counter, offer a better eating experience for the consumer and a slightly longer shelf-life for the deli operator.

“Sometimes a totally unprocessed bird can become a bit dry on the deli counter,” Adlington says. “We want your turkey throughout the year to taste like your Christmas turkey.”

Adlington says the novelty of top quality cooked or smoked turkey can turn a deli into a destination store

over the last two years, largely through word of mouth and frequent press attention. Pettegree is also a social media whiz, with more than 9,000 followers on Twitter.

Bray’s Cottage pies differ from the Melton Mowbray style commonly sold in supermarkets, not just because they are handmade. “They are seasoned very differently,” Pettegree says. “A Melton tends to be quite peppery, and ours have a fuller, rounder flavour because of the herbs and the balance of the spices.

“Our crust is more biscuity, because we tend to bake it for longer. And there’s no jelly. Our pies are so full of meat we were getting hardly any jelly in, so we stopped and no one noticed! Then we discovered it tends to be the jelly that puts people off pork pies, especially women and younger people.”

’nduja, cobnut & red wine salami from Kent, Scottish venison chorizo, Cornish bresaola and air-dried lamb, and 18-month air-dried ham from Wales.

Ottolenghi’s webstore and restaurants, The Natural Kitchen in Marylebone and Holborn and Sourced market at King’s Cross St Pancras are among its clients.

“We’re not producers,” says Sean Cannon, who runs the business with brother Joe. “Instead we choose the best available from most of the UK’s

talented artisan curers and charcutiers and can provide advice to retailers as to what to choose, what’s in season and how best to market it.”

Cannon & Cannon represents producers including Moon’s Green, Capreolus Fine Foods, Picco, Forest Pig and Suffolk Salami.

Sean Cannon adds: “The British charcuterie industry is quite new and there is a lot of average stuff to sift through before you get to the quality.

We’ve done that work on behalf of our clients.”

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

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PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS Welsh charcutier Illtud Llyr Dunsford (behind the mask) will add Continental-style salami ‘with a regional stamp’ to his list of bacon and hams later this year

Best of British… but looking further afield Charcutier Ltd www.charcutier.co.uk

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armarthenshire-based Charcutier Ltd is a good reminder that the British Isles have their own strong traditions in preserved meats – bacon, hams and so on – even if these were not always perceived as ‘charcuterie’.

“Our family have been rearing, curing and air-drying meats for centuries at our farm in west Wales,” says co-owner Illtud Llyr Dunsford.

So Charcutier Ltd is drawing on family tradition and techniques that have been passed from one generation to the next.

Capreolus Fine Foods www.capreolusfinefoods.co.uk

Its brand derives from the Latin name for roe deer, Capreolus capreolus, so it’s fitting that a smoked wild venison was one of two products for which Dorset-based Capreolus Fine Foods collected a Great Taste award in 2012.

But venison is just one product from the family business, which picked up a total of 17 gongs in

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“We produce truly British charcuterie from local pedigree Welsh breed pigs and our own woodlandreared Mangalitza pigs,” he says.

The family firm currently offers “old-fashioned” air-dried bacons and hams, a range of sausages (gluten- and preservative-free), brawn, potted meat, black pudding, lard and faggots. But Dunsford adds: “We’ve researched extensively, having travelled to France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Denmark and North America, and later this year we hope to have a new processing facility so we can add Continental-style charcuterie but with a thoroughly regional stamp.”

different schemes last year, including 14 regional Taste of the West awards.

It uses locally reared and wild meat from traditional and wild breeds wherever possible in a charcuterie range that spans cold-smoked beef, mutton, rose veal, smoked chicken and duck, pancetta, guanciale, airdried wild boar, smoked ham hocks and much more, including a wide range of slicing and ready-to-eat salamis and saucisson.

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

Carnevale www.carnevale.co.uk

A second-generation Italian business based in London, Carnevale makes fresh Napoli and Lucanica sausages to a traditional Italian recipe handed down over the past 40 years.

It uses a mixture of fresh pork shoulder and belly cuts (certified free range if required), deboned by its own butchers, which are coarseminced and mixed with a distinctive blend of herbs and spices.

“We then fill them into natural, animal casings that distinguish the different thickness of the sausage,” says director Luigi Carnevale, “the Lucanica being thinner than the Napoli variety.”

Four different types of seasoning are available – mild, pepper, chilli, and pepper & fennel – and Carnevale can also develop bespoke sausage recipes.

The sausages are supplied vacuumpacked into 400g or 2kg pouches.

Meet Bristol’s master charcutier Castellano’s www.castellanos.co.uk

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t’s 30 years since Italian-born Vincent Castellano moved to the UK from the French Alps, where he trained as a butcher, charcutier and traiteur.

After working in Bristol as a chef, charcutier and deli owner, Castellano now focuses on producing air-dried meats and Continental-style cured sausages, and he has built on his original restaurant clientele by moving into farm shops and fine food stores. Customers today include Arch House Deli in Clifton, the 2011 UK Deli of the Year.

Castellano’s product list includes chorizo, saucisson and pancetta.

Among its key lines are a recently added fennel and garlic flavoured finocchiona (fennel salami), matured for 10-12 weeks (trade £3.70 for a 200g sliced pack, RRP £6.60) and coppa, an air-dried cut of pork taken from the top of the shoulder or neck,

which is available whole at around £23.40/kg (trade) or in sliced prepacks.

All the Bristol business’s meat is sourced from Freedom Foods farms through two suppliers: the family-owned Ensors abattoir in Gloucestershire and Clifton butchers Ruby & White.

Others favourites from Castellano’s are its Snacky salamis which, as the name suggests, are snack-sized products for the bar or deli counter. There are three flavours – fennel & garlic, chilli & garlic, and black pepper – each retailing at around £1.30.

Vincent Castellano: Italian-born, French-trained but Bristol-based A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Multi award winning cooked and smoked charcuterie products Mixing traditional methods with modern values

Award winning Arden Forest Cooked Turkey

Award winning Arden Forest Smoked Turkey

At Adlington ltd we are committed to creating only the finest artisan products. These are produced utilising traditional slow cooking techniques with more modern technology. The results are tastes and textures that must be experienced to be believed!

Esme or Andrea in sales路 Tel: 01676 532 681路 sales@adlingtonltd.com A supplement to Fine Food Digest

www.adlingtonltd.com

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

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Using only British free range traditional breed meats Combining artisan methods with modern technology to create distinctly British produce No artificial colourings or flavourings & minimal preservatives Winner in ALL the major British food awards

Our unique product range: Salamis, Chorizos & Sobrasada Air-Dried Hams, Bresaola, Pancetta, Lamb/Beef/Venison Carpaccios Beef or Duck Pastrami, Boudin Noir, Hot Dogs, Bath Chaps Fresh & Semi-Dried Sausage, Hams, Bacon Made with British Pork, Beef, Venison, Lamb, Wild Boar, Duck & Veal

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Trealy Farm, Mitchel Troy, Monmouthshire, Wales NP25 4BL e: info@trealyfarm.com t; 01495 785090

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

www.trealyfarm.com

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS

Where charcuterie is the new cheese Cheese Cellar/ Dell’Ami www.cheesecellar.co.uk

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hen your company is named Cheese Cellar, it’s perhaps not surprising if buyers don’t instantly connect you with fine charcuterie.

That’s why the speciality food distributor has chosen its up-andcoming Dell’Ami brand – already spanning olives, antipasti, oils, mustards and more – as the umbrella for a new collection of mid- to highend meats aimed at chefs and deli operators.

Launching at London’s IFE show in March with a core of Italian and Spanish specialities – prosciutto, I see coppa, morcilla, Dell’Ami as lomo and so on ‘top end of – the Dell’Ami mid-range’. It’s charcuterie not a once-arange is set to year, break-thebe extended bank treat. with French and German cooked and cured meats and, in due course, new British charcuterie lines too.

In fact, Cheese Cellar has been selling charcuterie alongside its core cheese offer for some time – including Brits like Deli Farm and Oxsprings – but as category manager Graham Stoodley says, the list had evolved in a slightly random fashion, with a few notable gaps that are now being plugged. “We’d built the charcuterie range in an ad hoc way, and without a full range you can’t bring as many people on board.”

For the Dell’Ami selection, Stoodley and his colleagues have worked with existing suppliers but also tracked down new sources to add breadth and interest to the new range.

All the meats and cured sausages will initially be sold whole for slicing on the deli counter, rather than as pre-sliced pick-up-and-go packs, although these are likely to follow.

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❞

Cheese Cellar’s initial Dell’Ami charcuterie selection brings together a strong core of Italian and Spanish lines A supplement to Fine Food Digest

“We’re looking at the restaurant kitchen or the deli counter first,” says Stoodley, “because we want to build our credibility with chefs and deli owners before we have 100g shelfready packs.

“Credibility is the main thing.

We have to convince the world our tastebuds are good.”

There has clearly been some internal discussion about where the range should be pitched price-wise.

With its cheese offer, the company handles a number of big-name but small-scale artisan makers, which helps to open doors for bigger volume lines with key fine food clients like Whole Foods Market. “We probably don’t sell a huge volume of cheese from those gorgeous little artisan producers,” says Stoodley, “but we wouldn’t be doing our job properly if they weren’t there. And the approach is no different with the charcuterie.”

Cheese Cellar is not naming individual suppliers in its Dell’Ami charcuterie list, and won’t be seeking the ultra-premium prices that would go with, say, a 36-month matured Iberico ham from a named farmhouse producer.

“I see Dell’Ami as ‘top end of mid-range’,” says Stoodley. “It’s not about the once-a-year, break-thebank treat.

“We have a few stars in there that will really rock your world, like our new Dell’Amie acorn-fed Ibérico Morcilla [a type of Spanish blood sausage]. We had several disagreements about whether we should even stock a Morcilla, but once we tasted it, we were blown away. And even better, it’s not expensive.

“But then we will have a very good core range, with the USP that you can buy Dell’Ami charcuterie alongside your cheese, butter or pesto – and that’s a big strength.”

Creeside’s rustic pork terrine is its top seller

Creeside Charcuterie www.creesidecharcuterie.co.uk

Sarah Redman began her Creeside Charcuterie business in September 2012, less than six months after relocating from Cornwall to a 200acre farm in South Ayrshire with husband Simon and their young brood.

The pair now farm Black & Belted Galloway cows and Blackface sheep, while Sarah hand-produces a range of patés and terrines, drawing on the region’s abundant supplies of meat, fish and game.

“We started producing in September, selling direct via farmers’

markets,” she says. “Very quickly it became apparent there was a market for what we were making, with our rustic pork terrine a stand-out winner on sales.

“We don’t add any artificial preservatives, and we certainly don’t use artificial flavourings! If a paté has orange in it, it’s flavoured with a fresh orange, zested and juiced by hand.”

After brisk online sales in the runup to Christmas 2012, Sarah says: “We’ve now put our heads on the chopping block and are taking on the rental of a commercial kitchen so we can continue our growth of the business by supplying delis and farm shops.”

Delicioso www.delicioso.co.uk

Patés and rillettes are just a starting point for the Hardings

Cornish Charcuterie www.cornishcharcuterie.co.uk

Fionagh and Richard Harding launched their Cornish Charcuterie business on the family farm near Bude in 2011.

Since then, Fionagh’s jars of paté and rillettes, produced on a cottage-industry scale, have found favour with Stein’s Deli in Padstow and The Eden Project near St Austell.

But at the end of 2012 the couple began a £270k investment that will not only see Fionagh Harding upping production of her pork, duck and chicken paté recipes but also move into ‘hard‘ charcuterie such as salami and chorizo.

Product testing had begun as we went to press, and the couple expect to have their new range of fermented sausages in production by summer 2013.

Specialist importer and distributor Delicioso says air-cured ham and chorizo are “pretty essential for any delicatessen’s Spanish food range”.

The company, a former Great Taste Speciality Importer of the Year, offers a wide range of Ibérico and Serrano hams, on and off the bone; pre-packed and slicing charcuterie; and chorizo and morcilla (the Spanish black pudding) for cooking.

“We’re particularly proud of our smoked Asturian chorizo and morcilla,” says director Kate ShirleyQuirk, “which we sell loose or boxed in retail packs with our own label.”

New lines include a range of gourmet wild boar and venison chorizos and salamis, as well as an artisan salami known as Llonganissa de Pages.

Chorizo is central to any deli’s Spanish food range

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

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PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS Etruscany www.etruscany.co.uk

Fine food importer Etruscany is the brainchild of Tuscany-born and Yorkshire-based Yara Gremoli.

Alongside traditional Italian charcuterie her recently expanded range now includes specialities such as Mortadella Ossolana and cured meats from rare breed Cinta Senese pigs, along with truffle-cured meats and venison and goats’ salamis.

Formats vary from 50g pre-sliced packs to whole salamis and joints.

Olympic winner Deli Farm Charcuterie www.delifarmcharcuterie.co.uk

C

ornwall’s Deli Farm Charcuterie is one of the best-established producers on the British charcuterie scene.

Since Martin and Jean Edwards set up in 2006, the Delabole-based firm has developed a range of airdried products all made with fresh, locally sourced meat.

Its range includes coppa, bresaola, wild venison bresaola and lamb prosciutto. It also produces salamis, and says its own-recipe black olive salami – made with

lean leg of pork, kalamata olives and spices – is only 70 calories per 30g serving. All of its products are available whole or pre-sliced.

Deli Farm has steadily built up a customer base of delis, farm shops and restaurants across the UK, and last year it got the chance to promote its products to an international audience after winning an Olympic supplier contract.

The Edwards are also committed to sustainable business practice.

They keep their food miles low, their electricity is only taken from 100% renewable sources, they use ozonated water for sanitising to reduce chemical use and recycle the hot air from their refrigeration units.

Deli Farm Charcuterie’s wild venison bresaola

Sally and Jeremy Levell: artisan charcuterie from traditional breed pigs

If you go down to the woods…

Forest Pig www.forestpig.com

W

alkers and mountain bikers enjoying the woodland tracks of the Wyre Forest are likely to stumble across a scene reminiscent of Spain’s Dehesa de Extremedura, home of the famed Ibérico pig and source of some of the world’s finest ham.

The Worcestershire forest is where Jeremy and Sally Levell graze their herd of around 140 traditionalbreed pigs under a deal with the Forestry Commission and Natural England.

After spending eight months or more in the woodland – twice the life that most commercially reared pigs will get to experience – these animals will eventually find their way into the couple’s Forest Pig ham and salami range, the first British-

12

made charcuterie brand to be sold by Harrods’ food hall (see pages 4-5).

The Levells were complete novices before they visited Tuscany to learn more about artisan charcuterie, and they set up in production at their 12-acre smallholding with no great investment in temperature-controlled fermentation equipment, adjustable drying chambers or other purposebuilt hardware.

“You can have fancy kit that does it all for you,” says Sally Levell, who handles the business side of Forest Pig while her husband looks after livestock and production, “but we do everything at the human level. That’s what makes it artisan.”

While Italy’s giant Parma ham industry now relies on industrial scale production in controlled-atmosphere factories, she says, someone first had to understand what they wanted to achieve in terms of temperature,

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

humidity and air flows.“If you didn’t do it in the way we have, you would never learn. Just buying a £7,000 curing chamber from Italy won’t make you an artisan.”

The pair make seven types of salami, including a chorizo, along with air-dried ham, coppa (spiced, air-dried pork shoulder) and pancetta. There are also two styles of lomo (air-dried pork loin), one with paprika & rosemary and one with juniper & black pepper. These are sold at farmers’ markets as well as to a growing trade clientele including Battlefield 1403 Deli near Shrewsbury; What’s Cooking in Thame, Oxfordshire; Gather & Hunt in Marlow, Bucks; and The Albion gastropub in Islington.

Their pigs are mainly Oxford Sandy & Black and Large Black crosses, joined recently by a few Middle Whites. “We go for traditional or

rare breeds because they do so very well outdoors, and because they’re docile,” says Jeremy Levell. “The flavour is so much better that the commercial breeds too. Oxfords are a lean pig, Large Blacks are fatty – in fact, too fatty for a good flavour – but by crossing them we get the ideal conformation.”

Gaining permission to graze pigs in the Wyre Forest proved more challenging than expected, not least because two-thirds of its 6,500 acres is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest. But a pilot project showed that, far from damaging the ground, the pigs’ helped clear areas of bracken and bramble and create a seedbed for more valuable plantlife. Now, they are strip-grazed in two-acre sections, helping regenerate the woodland floor and creating a unique back-story for the Forest Pig brand.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Follow the Star, find the true Italian quality.

Since 1907 Negroni has been producing traditional premium delicatessen meats and is the most known brand of quality charcuterie in Italy.* The success of Negroni products is based on the wide and traditional top quality recipes, and on its full unique integrated “farm to fork” policy, added to over a century of craftsmanship, love and passion. It is no wonder that Negroni is the STAR of Italian charcuterie. *(source: Lexis 2012, Survey on top brand image of charcuterie brands in Italy) THE STAR OF ITALIAN DELICATESSEN MEAT SINCE 1907 Continental Charcuterie 2013-14 13

PLEASE CONTACT: WWW.NEGRONI.COM – EMAIL: NEGRONI.UK@NEGRONI.COM A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Guide to British &

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Award winning artisan charcuterie hand crafted in Cornwall info@delifarmcharcuterie.co.uk

Salami | Coppa | Bresaola | Pancetta | Prosciutto

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Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS Greeff‘s Beef Biltong

Grey’s Fine Foods

www.isleofwightbiltong.co.uk

www.greysfinefoods.com

A new Yorkshire-based importer of Spanish gourmet foods and wines, Grey’s Fine Foods distributes a wide selection of charcuterie around the UK from producers in the Iberian peninsula.

The list includes Serrano hams cured for over 14 months, soft Riojan chorizo, Chistorra sausage from Navarra, airdried Cecina from León and black pudding from Burgos, made with Bomba rice.

Grey’s specialities include Ibérico charcuterie from familyowned artisan producer Montanegra in the DO Dehesa de Extremadura region of south-west Spain (see our ham slicing guide on p30). Montanegra’s Iberian pigs are

Greedy Little Pig www.greedylittlepig.co.uk

Yorkshire pig farmer and hog roast operator Carl Slingsby was not only inspired by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall but also attended courses at the TV chef’s River Cottage HQ in the West Country before starting charcuterie production under his Greedy Little Pig brand.

Slingsby began rearing pigs about 10 years ago on a single acre of land, but now has a 10-acre site at Holmfirth, where he breeds Gloucester Old Spots crossed with Pie Train and Duroc pigs. He aims eventually to be self-sufficient in pork for both sides of his businesses.

Greedy Little Pig produces drycured bacon, fresh sausages and hams along with air-dried products such as chorizo, salami, coppa and guanciale.

Slingsby aims to provide a Britishmade alternative to imported classics like Parma ham and prosciutto.

Among his Continental-style specialities are Culatello, a premium ham cured slowly in a cow’s bladder, and Lonzino. The latter is an eye of loin, which Greedy Little Pig cures with a changing line-up of herbs and spices, including rosemary, paprika and star anise, to add variety for its restaurant customers.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Nick Greeff has been making biltong all his life, but the Zimbabwean only launched his Greeff’s Beef Biltong business two years ago – on the Isle of Wight, where his British wife Sarah was born and raised.

Now, Greeff produces a variety of flavoured biltongs using local Isle of Wight lean beef and a blend of spices,

with no MSG. The only preservative is sea salt, he says. Combined with air-curing, this create “a softer, real beef texture when you chew” and has seen Greeff’s pick up two Great Taste awards since launch.

Sold in snack-size packets, the flavours are: black pepper; coriander & Worcestershire sauce; garlic; oak smoked; sweet chilli; and air cured beef sausage.

fed on a diet of grass and acorns from holm and cork oak trees, giving their meat its distinctive aroma and taste.

Deer to be different Great Glen Game www.greatglengame.co.uk

R

etailers looking for an alternative to pork charcuterie will find more than a few options on Great Glen Game’s product list.

The Highlands-based artisan producer offers a range of handmade charcuterie lines using pure, lean wild venison blended

with organic spices and herbs.

“Only our venison & pork salami contains pigmeat,” says director Anja Baak, whose partner Jan Jacob started the company in 2003.

“Apart from that we don’t add pork fat and produce a very different take on salami.

“We use very specific traditional fermenting techniques to create a unique tasting product.”

The Dutch couple’s range of

cured venison products, available whole or sliced in pre-packs, includes salamis, pepperoni, chorizo and bresaola. There is also a smoked venison, which was the company’s first product, and smoked grouse breast.

As well as winning numerous Great Taste awards, Great Glen Game was shortlisted in the ‘Best Food Producer’ category of the BBC Food & Farming awards in 2012.

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

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PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS

Eschewing the chew Marsh Pig www.marshpig.co.uk

N

orth Norfolk’s Blakeney Deli and the fabled food hall at Bakers & Larners in nearby Holt are among the stockists of Jackie Kennedy’s locally made Marsh Pig charcuterie.

The range – including fennel salami and a red wine & black pepper salami – is produced at Claxton, a few miles south-east of Norwich, using pork from across the border in Suffolk.

“I only use free-range Blythburgh pork – or, specifically, trimmed-down leg meat,” says Kennedy, “as one of the things I hated about salami was having to pick all those nasties out of your

teeth afterwards. Eating Marsh Pig Charcuterie, you won’t need a toothpick!”

The quality of herbs and spices used is important too, says Kennedy, citing her Pimenton de la Vera paprika from Spain as one example.

Marsh Pig currently offers five different types of salami, a hot chorizo, lomo (air-dried pork loin) and bresaola (air-dried beef).

Kennedy says she is also proudly contributing to the new British culture of charcuterie, producing a seasonal wild game & sloe gin salami.

“The pheasant and partridge came from the local shoot that passes our property,” she says, “so none of the game has come from outside a fivemile radius.”

Marsh Pig: Made in Norfolk from Blythburgh pork

salami), copicollo (equivalent to northern Italy’s coppa), www.melodiafood.com pancetta, spianatta (a flat, coarse-ground salami) and n’duja (a soft, spreadable The Sila mountains in central Calabria provide an evocative pork salami spiced with backdrop to the production of chilli).

Melodia’s Carlo Ricioppo a range of Italian hams and salamis marketed in the UK by says n’duja is making headway in the UK now Melodia Food. thanks to its inclusions in Products available through pizza and pasta dishes by Melodia include soppressata Italian restaurants chains. (a small mild or sweet

Melodia Food Co

James Alexander Fine Foods www.jamesalexanderfoods.co.uk

North-West retailer and wholesaler James Alexander Fine Foods, run

by Oliver Nohl-Oser, distributes a range of British-made charcuterie from Cumbrian specialist butcher and curer Shaw’s Meats. They including salami, chorizo and biltong, as well as meats smoked in-house over local oak chippings.

All of Shaw’s charcuterie is made using 100% hand-trimmed pork.

James Alexander sells Cumbrian foods direct to the public online, but also wholesales to restaurants, delis and farm shops.

Cumbrian salami, produced by Shaw Meats

16

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

Maynard’s Farm www.maynardsfarm.co.uk

One of Rick Stein’s 50 select Food Super Heroes, Maynard’s Farm in Shropshire produces bacon, hams and other speciality pork products from locally reared pigs.

Its curing methods include marinating in treacle and honey, and it smokes its flitches of bacon in a brick kiln over oak chippings in its own smokehouse.

The business, owned by Rob and Fiona Cunningham, also makes many varieties of speciality sausage and what it describes as its own “stunning interpretation of pancetta”, sold in small blocks for slicing.

To make the pancetta, belly pork is dry cured for a week, then matured with nutmeg, mace and coriander for a further two to three weeks before being smoked for 48 hours.

Rob Cunningham of Maynard’ Farm A supplement to Fine Food Digest

A supplement to1 D&M_204X1415.indd

Fine Food Digest

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14 06/02/2013 10:31

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Patriana

High quality speciality food from France and Spain

Bayonne ham

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We Farm It! We Produce It! We Sell It!

We have won Great Taste Awards every year for all our British Charcuterie products gold 09

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Blyton Carr

Basque Kintoa ham

We offer award-winning high quality, traditional speciality food directly from artisan and farm producers representing the very best of South West France (the Basque region) and Spain – including air cured hams, chorizos, saucissons, patés, cheeses and much more.

Please visit www.patriana.com, or contact us for more information: E mail: info@patriana.com Tel: 07734114295

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Fabulous Norfolk Charcuterie

Artisan delicacies from Italian traditions

Salami & chorizo Wild Game and Sloe Gin, Fennel, Garlic and Paprika, Red wine and Black Pepper, Hot and Spicy, Garlic and Black Pepper, Hot Chorizo

La Credenza since 2001 has been sourcing farmhouse cheese, cured meat and ambient products of the highest quality from many small artisans all over Italy passionate about the products they create, generation after generation.

To us, every product tells a story of traditions, of local flavours and customs from old times.

Our full range of products will take you on a timeless culinary journey throughout regional Italy; may we tempt you here with a small selection:

air-dried meatS Lomo (Loin of Pork), Bresaola (Beef) Pancetta

Salumi from Maremma

At Marsh Pig we only use the leg meat from Blythburgh free-range pigs which are hard-trimmed to ensure you never need a tooth-pick to remove the sinewy bits you find in cheaper salamis.

Our salami might be more expensive than some – but the pigs deserve the best and, by the way, so do you.

From a small medieval hamlet in the Tuscan Maremma, Silvano Mori’s family factory will bring to your table the flavours of bygone days, of ancient knowledge and of ingredients of the finest quality.

Prosciutto San Daniele

Aged in the unique microclimate of San Daniele hill, bordered by the Alps and reached by the warm Mediterranean flow.

At Prosciuttificio DOK, the expertise has been handed down from generation to generation.

Made and a li with love, time ttle to enjoy wine, for you with frie nds Fabulous Norfolk Charcuterie

18

La Credenza Ltd

www.marshpig.co.uk

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

marsh pig ad.indd 1

Unit 9, College Fields Business Centre Prince George’s Road, London SW19 2PT Info@lacredenza.co.uk 020 7070 5070

A supplement to Fine Food Digest 11/2/13 20:50:57

PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS Micarmo Gourmet www.micarmo.co.uk

Most professional foodies will know jamon ibérico de bellota.

The most highly prized of Spain’s Ibérico hams, it is made using meat from black Iberian pigs, or pata negra, that roam freely in the oak forests around Spain’s border with Portugal, feasting not simply on grain but on a diet rich in acorns.

But how many people know Portugal has its own ‘black pig’ meat too?

Porco Preto, from the Alentejan black pig, has a back-story to

match its better known Spanish neighbour. These pigs also graze freely in areas of holm and cork oak for up to two years. Their meat is then cured and air-dried for around two more years by producers based in the mountains of Portugal.

The end product, according to Alexandre Ratzke De Figueiredo, MD of Brighton-based Portuguese food importer Micarmo, is not just a premium quality ham, but a range of charcuterie that goes beyond what Spain offers from its black pigs.

“In Spain, mainly cured legs of ham are produced from their pata negra,” he says, adding that

while the Spanish black pigs have interbred with other breeds, the Alentejan pigs’ bloodline remains pure.

“In Portugal we also produce many different types of enchidos [rustic cured sausages] from them – chouriços and other types of ‘filled’ meats – giving us an extensive range to choose from.”

Ratzke De Figueiredo says he plans to specialise in Portuguese charcuterie, and Micarmo will be pushing these distinctive cured meats out into UK speciality food stores, hotels and restaurants over the coming year.

A variety of hams and enchidos are made from Portugal’s own black pigs

Artisan secrets of Italy’s salumi star Negroni www.negroni.com

I

taly’s Negroni has been producing a full range of charcuterie, or more accurately ‘salumi’, since 1907, and is now the biggest selling quality brand in its home market.

Its product list spans regional salamis, Parma and San Daniele cured hams, and cooked and roast hams, all produced by a fully integrated farming and processing business that benefits from total farm-to-fork control of quality and consistency.

But while Negroni is one of Italy’s

biggest producers of the ubiquitous Parma, it also supplies a selection of more specialised, artisan cured meats that offer a real point of difference in the deli counter.

Chiara Bereselli of Negroni’s export department highlights the Zibello subbrand of products, made in the small town of Zibello around 20 miles north of Parma.

Here, Negroni produces handcrafted DOP Culatello di Zibello – made with the muscular inner thigh of the pig, encased in a pork bladder and then hand-tied with twine before curing – as well as DOP coppa and

pancetta.

“We also have some wonderful salamis that you won’t find in supermarket pre-packs,” she says, “such as salami Cremona IGP, made in the town of Cremona, or our salami Negronello, made with lean Italian pork and flavoured with garlic, white wine and spices.”

Culatello di Zibello is sometimes called the ‘King of Salumi’ but, for Bereselli, all roads lead back to the ‘King of hams’, Prosciutto di Parma, which Negroni makes in Parma, at its own production facility, from its own pigs.

While Parma ham provides the volume, pork from Negroni’s own farms finds its way into niche specialities like Culatello de Zibello and Salame Cremona

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Northfield’s salt beef

Northfield Farm www.northfieldfarm.com

Dry-cured bacon, salt beef and cooked, cured ox tongue are among the traditional British charcuterie lines that have been emerging from Leicestershire’s Northfield Farm since 1997.

Other products from the McCourt family’s farm at Cold Overton near Oakham, where the emphasis is on rearing rare breed animals, include black and white puddings, Rutland Panther beercured bacon and pork rillettes.

The rillettes, made with slowcooked belly and shoulder meat, collected a Great Taste award in 2012 – one of a string of awards collected over the past decade.

Oxsprings www.oxsprings.com

Alex Oxspring has been producing air-dried ham since 2007, using Freedom Food pork from farms local to his small curing unit near Pershore, Worcestershire.

He set out to produce a British equivalent of prosciutto that would meet growing demand for ‘localness’ and traceability. His ham has since featured on numerous top class menus, including Eurostar 1st class, Wimbledon tennis catering and some of London’s best restaurants.

After focusing initially on foodservice, Oxprings is now expanding into retail with a 100g sliced pack and a boneless whole ham.

The pork legs – cured naturally without nitrates – are aged in drying rooms for a minimum of eight months, then chosen for sale when sufficient weight loss has occurred.

“The product is very much handmade,” says Alex Oxpsring, “as much more attention to detail is needed when you’re not using artificial additives.”

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

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0480 Melodia Ad

23/11/10

15:38

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Importers and distributers of fine hams and charcuterie For a full list of charcuterie products, please go to our web site and register www.melodiafood.com

Ritchies of Rothesay produces hand crafted Smoked Salmon with a deep smoky flavour and rich buttery texture.

We create an artisan product using a traditional method passed down through family generations, and believe the quality speaks for itself.

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For more information visit our website or call 01254 707142 Melodia Food Company Limited Unit 8 Darwen Enterprise Centre, Railway Road, Darwen, Lancashire BB3 3EH www.melodiafood.com

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Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS Picco

Time to relaunch your charcuterie section?

www.picco.co.uk

Salame sotto grasso, a speciality of northern Italy, is among the traditional Italian products now being made in London by the Picco family.

It is made with 100% free range pork from Blythburgh in Suffolk, and contains no bacterial starters, lactose or gluten. “It’s spiced up with mulled wine and Tellicherry black pepper, aged for two months and then preserved in pure lard for about three months,” says Luca Picco. “The result is a salami with an incredibly full flavour and an exceptionally tender texture.”

All the family’s charcuterie is made with free range meats, along with organic, artisanal, untreated sea salt from the salt pans of Sicily. Luca Picco says slow ageing, without the use of bacterial starters or lactose, allows the ‘fiore’ (moulds) to develop fully and gives a sweetness and low acidity that would be typical of homemade charcuterie.

Patchwork Traditional Food Co www.patchwork-pate.co.uk

I

Salame sotto grasso: An Italian speciality made in north London

Crown jewels of Emilia Romagna Prosciutto di Parma www.prosciuttodiparma.com

O

ne of the highest quality hams available worldwide and a mainstay of many deli counters, Prosciutto di Parma is a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) product, which means it can only be produced and cured in the traditional production area near Parma, a small northern town in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy.

There are 160 producers of Parma ham in Italy, represented by the Consorzio del Prosciutto di Parma, who continue to practice

their traditional methods using just four ingredients: Italian pigs, salt, air and time.

The uniqueness of Parma ham is protected by law and guaranteed by the Ducal Crown. This mark, policed by the Corsorzio, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

Only hams that have been aged for a minimum of 12 months are given the Ducal Crown, but Parma is typically cured for nearer to 16-18 months and some can be aged for 24 months or more, giving retailers a variety of age profiles to offer a point of difference on the deli counter.

f your charcuterie sales look a little limp, maybe it’s time to spend a few minutes looking at the counter from the customer’s viewpoint. Does your range look as if you’re proud to be selling it, or does it need refreshing?

“When I go into a deli it’s the section I get most excited about,” says Rufus Carter, MD of premium paté-maker Patchwork, “but I think some shops have let their charcuterie section shrink too easily.

“It’s a bit chicken-and-egg: if you don’t put much on display, you’re not going to sell it, are you?

North Wales-based Patchwork, which celebrated its 30th birthday last year, was the pioneer of artisan patés and remains a cornerstone of the charcuterie offer in delis and farm shops as well as finding new markets, particularly at the top end of airline catering.

Most of its products are sold frozen for sale in retail packs from the freezer cabinet or defrosted as required in the chilled counter, although it recently branched out into ambient, jarred patés. But all are nowadays distinguished by strong, colourful branding and point-of-sale support.

“Looking at the chiller counter, we knew we were up against salads, pestos, sexy looking pies and a big mountain of cheese,” says Carter.

“You have to stop charcuterie looking like the bridesmaid, so we deliberately went for branding that really shouts, ‘Here we are!’”

Carter has these pointers for shops that find their charcuterie sections need a bit of a relaunch: • Give lots of recipe ideas. “We put stickers on our products with direct instructions – ‘Stir me through

pasta’, or ‘Try me on steak’ – and it works,” says Carter. “If you’re cooking chicken with skin on or wrapped in Parma ham, it’s a no-brainer to tuck some paté in there. Any patés that melt are great on meat or on roasted veg.”

• Charcuterie is best eaten at room temperature so don’t let customers be put off buying it at lunchtime just because it will be out of the fridge for a few hours. Salamis, patés and pork pies all taste better when they’ve warmed up a little.

• Shoppers find the smell of homecooked meat irresistible. “If you’re cooking your own beef or ham, shout about it. Tell your customers the story: the butcher it came from, how you cooked it, the glaze you used.”

• Help customers beat their charcuterie nerves. A lot of the products have names that are hard to pronounce, and people don’t like asking questions. Carter says: “The smartest retailers, as soon as they see a customer hesitating, will ask, ‘Is there anything you’re particularly interested in?”

• Make it clear how many slices they’ll get for their money. “I love salami, but I still have no idea how much to ask for. What does 100g look like? One of our customers handles this well: they have whole salamis, but always have a few slices pre-cut too. They’ll hold up a few slices with a knife and say, ‘How many slices would you like?’”

• Make charcuterie a hero. “ If you only sell one paté or salami, you can’t be surprised if you don’t sell much. Most delis sell several cheddars to suit different tastes.

Sell more of a range of charcuterie and it becomes a ‘hero’ category for you, just like cheese.”

Rufus Carter: ‘You have to stop charcuterie looking like the bridesmaid’ A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

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Based in the Cotswolds, Upton Smokery evolved 8 years ago and produces a wide range of smoked meat, game and fish – as well as pates, potted game & fish and salt & pepper mixes. We take full time, care and pride throughout all the processes, ensuring that the end products are always of the very highest quality. We believe that we produce a seriously good and diverse range of food and this is fully endorsed by our customers.

Our products are available wholesale nationwide on request and retail from our shop & website

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Shop: Upton Downs Farm, Burford, Oxon. OX18 4LY 01993 823699 Smokery: Hurst Barn Farm, Burford, Oxon. OX18 4TH 01451 844744

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British Charcuterie with Provenance Award winning salami and charcuterie produced on our family farm with our home reared pork.

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Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

Ian & Sue Whitehead 01379 384593 | www.suffolksalami.co.uk ian@lanefarm.co.uk | sue@lanefarm.co.uk Lane Farm, Brundish, Suffolk IP13 8BW

Retail packs and wholesale

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Simple Simon’s Perfect Pies

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uinE gEn k YOR nEW Ami R pASt

• Family company established 1977 • BRC certified at the highest level • Over 1000 products • Specialists in quality cooked meats and continental charcuterie • Full range of British and continental cheeses also supplied • Vast selection for the deli counter and retail packs for the chilled cabinet • FREE delivery anywhere in England & Wales (Ts & Cs apply) A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

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For the best charcuterie that Spain has to offer…

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Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS Lincolnshire haslet from Jane Tomlinson (inset) and her team at Redhill Farm

Lincolnshire’s versatile meatloaf Redhill Farm www.redhillfarm.com

I

f you are assembling a British charcuterie range, Lincolnshire haslet ticks a lot of boxes. It’s a regional speciality, it’s hand-produced and it’s versatile.

Jane Tomlinson, MD of producer Redhill Farm, recommends warming a slice of Lincolnshire haslet, without oil, in a pan, placing it on a slice of toast and topping it with a soft poached egg and hollandaise sauce.

But it can also used as a readyto-eat nibble, as a canapé topping, a sandwich filling or as an ingredient in more elaborate dishes.

While other styles of meatloaf may contain offal, Tomlinson’s 2012 Great Taste award winner is made with 85% free range pork from the family farm, blended into a sausage

meat with breadcrumb rusk, English rubbed sage and seasoning. The mix is “hand-slapped” in balls to remove all the air, then moulded into 300g loaves and oven-baked until the outside has turned brown and caramelised.

Jane and Terry Tomlinson rear their own free-range, slow-growing pigs on their Freedom Foodsaccredited farm in at Blyton Carr, near Gainsborough.

Charcuterie is produced by hand in the farm butchery and brick smokehouse, which uses mature English oak chippings.

Every item on Redhill Farm’s charcuterie list is a Great Taste winner, including oak-smoked pancetta, dry-cured hams and bacon, black pudding and pork pies, and Tomlinson lists Jamie Oliver and The Goring, Belgravia, among her clients.

Ross & Ross www.rossandrossfood.co.uk

Raging Bull Meats www.ragingbullmeats.com

Laurence Gluckman opened a new chapter in his South African family’s long association with the meat industry when he set up Raging Bull Meats in 2009.

While his relatives have been involved in large-scale meat trading for more than a century, Gluckman’s Londonbased business homed in on finished products.

In 2012, Raging Bull collected Great Taste awards for three lines, including its fresh boerewors sausage and two dried snacks: Chilli Beef Snapsticks and Original Beef Biltong.

Gluckman says Raging Bull’s biltong snacks, made from British silverside beef, are “super lean” to cater for the heath-conscience British public, and free of MSG. Available UK-wide, they are hand-packed into snack size bags and sold on hanging strips to catch the customer’s eye and save shelf space.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Launched in 2012, Ross & Ross is a two-man-band making Frenchstyle “potted produce and cutting terrines” in a kitchen in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

Its core range includes duck and pork rillettes and chicken liver paté in jars, together with terrines such as smoked bacon, chicken, tarragon and pistachio. The latter are supplied as 1.1kg whole terrines or prepacked slices.

“We work with the seasons, and create products that reflect that,” says co-owner Ross Bearman, pointing to a typical, seasonal “guest terrine” of pheasant, pork & walnut.

It also makes chutneys designed to suit each of its potted meats.

Serious Pig www.seriouspig.co.uk

A pioneer of premium grab-andgo British charcuterie, Serious Pig offers two ambient lines, the 28g Snacking Salami (trade £1.05) and the biltong-style Snackingham (trade £1.25 for a 35g bag), made in the West Country from Freedom Food British pork.

Owner George Rice says the products, which have a four-month shelf life, are perfect snack packs for delis and farm shops and act

Port of Lancaster Smokehouse www.lancastersmokehouse.co.uk

Port of Lancaster Smokehouse is a family-run, artisan business that offers traditionally smoked fish, meats and cheeses alongside contemporary recipes such as vodka & coriander smoked salmon.

Its smoked eel was not only a three-star winner in last year’s Great Taste awards but was judged to be

among the best 50 fine food products in Britain, while its smoked salmon, duck breast and kippers have also scored highly in recent Great Taste judging.

Products for the charcuterie counter include a Tuscan-style pancetta, capturing the flavours of rosemary, bay leaves, smoked garlic, cracked black pepper and sugar.

A recent addition from the smokehouse is smoked venison infused with seasonal wild berries, red wine and garlic.

as “a great introduction the wider sector of British charcuterie”.

“We ferment and mature our salami in the traditional way to make sure we get that nice cheesy tanginess that you get with all good salami on the Continent,” he says.

The two Snacking Salami flavours are Classic, described as similar to a Milano but with extra black pepper, and chilli & paprika.

Snackingham is available in Classic (flavoured with herbs and spices including caraway, fennel and mace) and chilli & ginger versions.

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

25

Organic & Free Range

Home delivery, fresh from our farm in the Scottish Borders

PORK BEEF RUBY VEAL LAMB & MUTTON CHARCUTERIE Organic charcuterie from Peelham Farm, Foulden, Berwickshire. Peelham produce four charcuterie lines from their own pork and mutton; a t: 01890 781 328 e : i n fo @ p e e l h a m . co. u k dark rustic chorizo, a mild mantuan-style salami with a S u s t a i n a b i l i t y · I nte gr i t y · Tra ce a b i l i t y · Ta s te hint of nutmeg, a herb-rich fennel and caraway salami facebook.com/peelhamfarm with ‘taste-bud-bombs’ of red and green pepper-corns, @peelhamfarm an air-dried prosciutto-style ham and their latest Exceptional English artisan charcuterie product a mild-smoked, air-dried mutton. Peelham Multi-award winning artisan producers of exceptional cured, have evolved and developed their charcuterie recipes air-dried, smoked and cooked charcuterie. skills over the last 15 years to suit their Berwickshire Our range includes salamis, saucisson, wild venison, beef, climate from many trips to both France and Italy. The mutton, rose veal, duck, chicken, hocks, pancetta, guanciale, mild-smoked air-dried mutton is based on a fusion of air-dried hams (including wild boar), dry-cured bacon, lardo, duck confit, chorizo, lonzino, coppa, air dried beef and veal.

Hebridean and Italian air-drying methods.

www.peelham.co.uk

Peelham Farm Organic

Peelham Farm

T: 01890 781328 | E: info@peelham.co.uk www.peelham.co.uk

Capreolus Fine Foods

www.capreolusfinefoods.co.uk

Uphall Farmhouse Rampisham Dorset DT2 0PP 01935 83773

Established for over 25 years and still a family concern National distribution Bake off pies Deli Pies Retail Packed Cooked Meats Pates Ox Tongue

salami - chorizo - pepperoni - smoked venison - bresaola winning Charcuterie made made with pure wildwild venison AwardAward winning Charcuterie with pure venison sustainably sourced from the Scottish Highlands. sustainably sourced from the Scottish Highlands.

Contact Anja – Tel: 01397 712121 · Email: info@greatglengame.co.uk

www.greatglengame.co.uk salami - chorizo - pepperoni - smoked venison - bresaola

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Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

gold 09

Martyn & Melanie Reynolds Tel 01768 863841 Fax 01768 868900 info@burbushs.co.uk www.burbushs.co.uk A supplement to Fine Food Digest

PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS The Real Boar Co

The Cotswold Curer

www.therealboar.co.uk

info@thecotswoldcurer.co.uk

Simon Gaskell of The Real Boar Co says his game salami, made with wild boar, pheasant, venison and “a dash of port”, is a personal favourite among the range of salamis, chorizo and air-dried ham produced at his Cotswolds base.

The Real Boar Co farms slow-growing wild boar to produce a meat that Gaskell says “has more depth of taste, lower saturated fat and higher protein than traditional pork”.

Products are available in a range of sizes and shapes from 100g to whole 800g-plus and there are gift-boxed salamis too.

Peter Crumby, the man behind The Cotswold Curer, says he plans to target farm shops, delis and restaurants this year with his range of salami, chorizo and pancetta after establishing the Cirencester-based business on farmers’ markets in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.

“We source all of our pork from a local farm, where the Gloucester Old Spot pigs are free to roam, allowing them to develop a fuller flavour and remarkable texture,” says Crumby.

Southover Foods www.southoverfoods.com

It may distribute a range of products that spans Honeybuns cakes and Higgidy quiches, but Southover Foods has its roots firmly in the meat industry.

Steve Pearce, who co-founded the East Sussex business in 1989, was a butcher by trade, and started Southover to produce and supply his own cooked hams and other meats in the Brighton area.

More than two decades later, the business distributes a range of speciality foods nationwide, but it is still producing prize-winning meats,

with both its free-range honey roast cooked back bacon and its shaved New York pastrami winning awards in Great Taste 2012.

Cured to Southover’s own recipe, the award-winning bacon uses free-range loin of pork, steamed and then roasted with a honey glaze. It is supplied to the trade in 1kg CAP trays.

For the pastrami, a dry rub is applied after the product has been cured and the beef is then cooked, sliced very thinly and packed into 500g or 1kg trays.

The dry rub is an exclusive recipe produced for Southover by a local company.

Shaved pastrami was one of two Great Taste winners for Southover in 2012

A taste of Tuscany… in Suffolk Suffolk Salami www.suffolksalami.co.uk

I

an and Sue Whitehead began making Suffolk Salami at Lane Farm, in the rural heart of the county, over eight years ago.

They were among the first in the UK to make a moulded salami commercially using their own pork.

“It all started from a holiday in Tuscany,” says Ian Whitehead, “and a crazy Italian butcher who invited us down into his cellar to make salami with him. A magical day and one never to be forgotten.”

In 2009, they picked up a twostar Great Taste award for their chorizo, which is made with three different types of paprika and gently smoked over oak and beech chippings.

New for this year is a salami made with rosemary, handpicked from the Whitehead’s garden, and Suffolk air-dried ham.

All their Freedom Foodaccredited pork is outdoor-bred and then finished in straw barns at the farm in Brundish.

Suffolk Salami: inspired by a Tuscan holiday A supplement to Fine Food Digest

The Bath Pig www.thebathpig.com

The Bath Pig’s British-made chorizo, produced with pork from Freedom Food-certified farms, is bought by restaurants and delis throughout the British Isles.

Clever marketing has been one of the brand’s features since the business, founded by Matthew ‘Mash’ Chiles and Tim French, moved from kitchentable operation to full commercial production in 2009, and this year will see the unveiling of a ‘Pig Van’ serving Chorizo Lollipops at festivals nationwide Chiles says The Bath Pig will also extend its range to include a British salami, while a new relationship with a yet-to-be-named chilled distributor will help drive sales of its chilled, semicured cooking chorizo range.

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

27

Sausage Making & Catering Equipment Supplies

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Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

www.oxsprings.com T. 07972 497 685

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A supplement to Fine Food Digest

PRODUCERS & SUPPLIERS

Meat of the moment Trealy Farm www.trealyfarm.com

T

he food world is replete with overblown product claims, but Trealy Farm can point to a shelfload of awards to justify its strapline ‘Exceptional British Charcuterie’.

Best Welsh Speciality in Great Taste 2012, a category winner in last year’s Wales the True Taste awards, UK Food Producer of the Year in 2010’s Observer Food Monthly awards – it’s even had the nod from nose-to-tail-eating chef Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, who reckons Trealy makes “the best artisan charcuterie in the UK”.

For a while Trealy was just about the only artisan producer of Continental-style charcuterie in the UK, or, at least, the only one whose products ranked alongside those from southern Europe.

Started in Monmouthshire in 2004 by James Swift and this then business partner Graham Waddington (now running his own business on the Lydney Park Estate in Gloucestershire), it has established a range spanning salamis, lomo, coppa, pancetta, bresaola and much more, alongside traditional British specialities such as Bath Chaps (pigs’ cheeks, brined and cooked).

And while pork remains its key

Vallebona www.vallebona.co.uk

Beef bresaola from Lombardy, wild boar prosciutto, lamb prosciutto and Sardinian salame sardo are among the Italian artisan products available to UK stores and restaurants from Vallebona.

Based in south-west London, the ‘Sardinian Gourmet’ importer numbers

Upton Smokery www.uptonsmokery.co.uk

Based at Hurst Barn Farm near Burford in the Cotswolds, Upton Smokery produces a wide range of smoked meat, game and fish, as well as patés, potted game and fish.

Wholesaling nationwide, Upton Smokery has been in operation for eight years.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

raw material, the company is also producing charcuterie using beef, wild boar, venison, rabbit and even goat. Its two big awards of 2012 were for airdried lamb carpaccio with rosemary.

Swift and his team have studied Continental methods, he says, but never slavishly copied them, and have also developed bespoke recipes for restaurants, gastro-pubs, delis and others.

And while other quality producers have come on the scene, many of them featured in this Guide, Trealy Farm has continued to grow.

In 2011, the company shifted production from its Monmouthshire farm base to a new processing facility between Usk and Abergavenny. This has enabled it to increase output, while still drawing on both its own farm and other local, small-scale producers for free-range, traditionalbreed meats.

The idea of British charcuterie with strong provenance and a short, transparent supply chain is surely appealing to foodie shoppers at a time of further meat scares. And Trealy Farm’s own commitment to the cause is shown by its development of The Meat Course – a two-day programme at the original Trealy Farm in which people who care about where their meat comes from can learn about the whole process, from slaughter to table. the Four Seasons Park Lane and Devon’s Darts Farm food hall among its clients.

Other products from Vallebona include pancetta, speck and fresh Italian sausages.

Products can be bought whole, or sliced and vacuum-packed to order, with next-day nationwide delivery on orders of £150 and over.

James Swift’s Trealy Farm is a serial award winner

Three Little Pigs www.yorkshiresalami.co.uk

Free-roaming rare breed Berkshire pigs from the owners’ farm on the Yorkshire Wolds lend a distinctive flavour to Three Little Pigs’ chorizo and salami, which picked up a brace of two-star Great Taste awards in 2012.

“Our pork is minced finely, which gives the products a smoother texture, with fewer ‘chewy’ bits, than their European counterparts,”

says Charlotte Clarkson, who runs the business, at Kiplingcotes Farm near Beverley with husband Jon. The family’s pork is combined with herbs and spices including Spanish La Vera smoked pimentón and selected herbs and spices, to produce both spicy and mild chorizo varieties, which are tied by hand and dried under controlled conditions.

Both the chorizo and salami are 200g ambient products and are supplied in transparent packaging under the Three Little Pigs brand.

Products range from smoked goose breast – a richer, denser alternative to smoked duck – to gravadlax and smoked salmon.

Yorkshire salami is made with free range Berkshire pork Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

29

10 steps to

heaven

Whole legs of Ibérico ham can add theatre to your counter but serving customers might seem daunting. JAVIER de la HORMAZA of Grey’s Fine Foods provides a step-by-step guide to carving this Spanish delicacy.

Step 1 Fit the leg on the ham stand and make sure it is fully fastened. Place a damp cloth under the stand to ensure maximum grip and keep your hands clean at all times, as they tend to get greasy and this could lead to an accident when handling knives.

Step 2 In order to slice Ibérico ham properly you need the right knives; three of them, in fact. Your ham-slicing knife should have a long, narrow, flexible blade. You will also need a boning knife with a short, rigid blade for peeling and a cook’s knife for the auxiliary cuts, which have to be made at either end of the leg.

Step 4 Next, make a vertical cut, using the cook’s knife, around the leg at the height of the ham shank (See point 5 of leg diagram). Use this as a starting point for your horizontal slicing across the leg.

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Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

Step 3 First, you need to remove the skin from the ham. Using the boning knife, make some fine, horizontal peeling cuts. If the ham is going to be consumed fairly quickly, then peel the whole leg. If not, it’s best to peel it as you consume it.

Step 5

Start by removing the outer layers of fat from the centre and both sides, making sure you keep the large slices to cover the ham when not using it.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

SLICING SKILLS Step 1 [pic 1]

Step 7 Step 6 Using the slicing knife, slice down the leg. Every slice should be made in the same direction, one after the other.

For safety reasons, keep your non-slicing hand away from the blade. Use it to hold the slices as they begin to lift up. For a more professional touch, use a pair of tongs to pick the slices up.

Step 8 The slices need to be very thin, nearly transparent.

They should be as wide as the ham and around 2.5 inches long.

Step 9 The slices should be presented on the plate in one layer with each slice slightly overlapping.

Grey’s Anatomy Before you begin slicing, think about how quickly the ham will be consumed. If it’s going to be eaten or sold fairly swiftly (or if you want the best and juiciest part), then cut from the inside of the leg (section A). For longer timespans, start on the outside of the leg (section B).

When slicing from the inside of the leg, we would recommend that in each portion you combine slices from the central part (section A), from the point end (section C) and from the shank (section D). The slicing of this area will require you to make two vertical auxiliary cuts. The first one (at point 5) will ensure you slice in line against the shank. The second (at point 6), which must be made with a boning knife, will loosen up the coxal bone (1).

Finally, keep any meat on the bone that you cannot make into slices.

Cut it into chunky pieces, which can be used in a number of dishes and stews. Don’t throw away the bone either, as it can be sawed into pieces and used as an ingredient in soups and stocks.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Step 10 To keep the ham in good condition, cover the exposed slicing area with the fat layers you have saved. Make sure that none of the meat is exposed, to avoid drying out. Try to do this whenever you’re not slicing. At the end of service, wrap the whole leg with muslin cloth ready for next service.

Guide to British & Continental Charcuterie 2013-14

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Pâté is for everyday not just for Christmas day

Quality Pâté - Handmade in North Wales - 01824 705832 When calling please quote FFD13 www.patchwork-pate.co.uk

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