Reflection of the Cured Meats Presentation- Blog #13

Cured meats are nothing new to me, in fact back at home my family has what we call 'cold night.' 'Cold night' consists of good, crusty bread, a bunch of cured meats, cheeses, and usually some sort of cold salad. This summer I had the chance to go to the Mother Earth News Fair (Mother Earth News is an awesome magazine and you should definately check it out, here's the link for the fair), which is all about independence and self-reliance know how and how to. One of the lectures/demonstrations I went to was by Meredith Leigh who has to be one of the most fascinating humans I've ever encountered in my life. 

Source

She is a writer (her book The Ethical Meat Handbook has a bunch of yummy recipes and lots of advice) a butcher, a farmer, and a cook....in other words she's pretty badass. Not only does she know how to raise the animals but she also knows how to properly butcher them and how to turn them into all sorts of 'small, delicious, morsels' as she calls them, and now she's sharing her knowledge. She gave a talk and demonstration on an 'Introduction to Charcuterie' she gave basic tips and tricks and some awesome recipes for various cured meats. Needless to say when the group said they were talking about cured meats I was a happy camper.

It was interesting to learn that salumi was an important part of the Italian diet, but only happened out of the needed to preserve meat for a longer period of time. I also didn't realize how regional cured meats were, though from all we've discussed this year it really shouldn't have been a surprise. It makes sense that cured meats in the south tend to be spicery because food in general is spicier in the south.  The group covered three different cured meats from three different regions; speck from the northeast, prosciutto from the central, and 'nduja from the south. Although I had heard of speck and prosciutto before, I had never hear of 'nduja. 'Nduja is a spicy cured meat made with leftover bits of pig. It is spiced with the calabrian chile pepper, which is known to be quite spicy. As someone who loves spicy food and pushing my 'spice limit' I'm excited to try this cured meat at some point in the future!

Ciao for now!
Veni. Vidi. Mangia.