Charcuterie

Comprehensive coverage of a surprisingly rarely covered topic. Makes you appreciate how much effort goes behind what we see as everyday sausages and charcuterie. Oh, and also makes you want to pull out that meat grinder and start mincing. Anyone got some dead pig going spare?

This got me started on Charcuterie, received it as a Christmas present and the next Thanksgiving served the sausages on the front cover. It is comprehensive and it is time consuming. At this point I have probably made 90% of the sausage, I regularly cure hams, wine coolers work well for this. I do hot and cold smoking. The French Garlic Sausage is a staple in the house.

It does take time, it takes a cold kitchen, it works better with good pork, especially for things like whole hams and bacon.

For those interested in meat and in foodsmoking, this is an extraordinarily thought-provoking book. But also potentially demanding in terms of one's commitment to putting in the time to create quality food.

Everything I ever wanted to know about preserving meat, fish, and fowl. How to whack, grind, chop, salt, brine, smoke, dry and otherwise create the yummiest meat, fish, and poultry.

Charcuterie exploded onto the scene in 2005 and encouraged an army of home cooks and professional chefs to start curing their own foods. This love song to animal fat and salt has blossomed into a bona fide culinary movement, throughout America and beyond, of curing meats and making sausage, pates, and confits. Charcuterie: Revised and Updated will remain the ultimate and authoritative guide to that movement, spreading the revival of this ancient culinary craft. Early in his career, food writer Michael Ruhlman had his first taste of duck confit. The experience "became a fascination that transformed into a quest" to understand the larger world of food preservation, called charcuterie, once a critical factor in human survival. He wondered show more why its methods and preparations, which used to keep communities alive and allowed for long-distance exploration, had been almost forgotten. Along the way he met Brian Polcyn, who had been surrounded with traditional and modern charcuterie since childhood. "My Polish grandma made kielbasa every Christmas and Easter," he told Ruhlman. At the time, Polcyn was teaching butchery at Schoolcraft College outside Detroit. Ruhlman and Polcyn teamed up to share their passion for cured meats with a wider audience. The rest is culinary history. Charcuterie: Revised and Updated is organized into chapters on key practices: salt-cured meats like pancetta, dry-cured meats like salami and chorizo, forcemeats including pates and terrines, and smoked meats and fish. Readers will find all the classic recipes: duck confit, sausages, prosciutto, bacon, pate de campagne, and knackwurst, among others. Ruhlman and Polcyn also expand on traditional mainstays, offering recipes for hot- and cold-smoked salmon; shrimp, lobster, and leek sausage; and grilled vegetable terrine. All these techniques make for a stunning addition to a contemporary menu. Thoroughly instructive and fully illustrated, this updated edition includes seventy-five detailed line drawings that guide the reader through all the techniques. With new recipes and revised sections to reflect the best equipment available today, Charcuterie: Revised and Updated remains the undisputed authority on charcuterie.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR CHARCUTERIE
"Happily, cooking with fresh, seasonal, local ingredients is advanced everywhere in cookbooks today, but we have long needed a comprehensive work on the vital traditions of preserving and transforming those same products. Michael and Brian have risen to that challenge. Charcuterie surpasses my most extravagant hopes for what such a book could be. It will inspire droves of cooks. If it doesn't tell you everything you need to know about making charcuterie, it certainly establishes a gold standard for how to say it."
-JUDY RODGERS, author of The Zuni Café Cookbook

"This book reminds me what a hopeful time it is for cooking in this country. In fact, this may be the most exciting time ever to be a cook and a chef in America. And Charcuterie is a perfect example of why."
-from the foreword by THOMAS KELLER, chef/owner of The French Laundry and Per Se Restaurants

"Good charcuterie recipes are as closely guarded as family secrets. As a young cook in Moissac, France, I had to spy and even participate in the killing of my neighbor's pig just to get his pâté recipe. In Charcuterie, Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn demystify all of this and share with us the best techniques to cure, smoke, and preserve meat in the tradition of the best charcutiers out there."
-ERIC RIPERT, chef/co-owner of Le Bernardin Restaurant, New York

"Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn are doing God's work: making the noble art of charcuterie accessible and easily understood. Charcuterie is an important and definitive work that deserves to stand proudly and forever in every serious cook's kitchen."
-ANTHONY BOURDAIN, author of Kitchen Confidential

"Never has the art of charcuterie been handled this thoroughly for the home cook. Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn have drawn together the science, the hand craft, and the fabulous tastes of this great celebration of the pig. Bravo for a new classic."
-LYNNE ROSSETTO KASPER, host of American Public Media's national radio series The Splendid Table®

"Until now, the craft of charcuterie has been an art form restricted to a few masters. With Charcuterie, Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn have opened the door for home cooks everywhere to experience the thrill of making charcuterie."
-MARIO BATALI, chef/owner of Babbo Restaurant, New York

"Chock full of sound practical advice and a wide range of recipes that cross cultures and traditions, Charcuterie provides an open window on the delicious possibilities available to the home cook and professional chef alike."
-PAUL BERTOLLI, founder, Fra' Mani Handcrafted Salumi show less