Then they came for salume and I did nothing...

New York City, having eliminated the tobacco menace, goes after dry-cured artisanal pork:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/17/dinin ... ref=slogin

And after they got rid of the sous vide menace.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/nyreg ... -b&emc=rss

What the NYTimes article doesn't state is how many people actually get sick from dry-cured meats each year. I'll bet it is a lot fewer than get ill from pre-formed fastfood hamburger patties.

The article brought back memories of when I lived in Boston as a young kid. Many families had smokehouses or sausage shacks behind their houses. I had a friend whose grandparents owned a small grocery that cured its own sausage. I recall that funky odor the article describes, a sharp but sweet yeasty smell mixed with garlic and spices. It is remarkable how distinctly I remember it. Are there any places in Chicago that still make dry-cured meats the old fashioned way?

d4v3 wrote:Are there any places in Chicago that still make dry-cured meats the old fashioned way?

Freddy's in Cicero and Riviera come to mind--both make sopressata. I've tried Freddy's, both mild and hot and really liked both, but especially the hot. Will try Riviera soon. (Both are mentioned in this thread.)

Kristen

kl5 wrote:

d4v3 wrote:Are there any places in Chicago that still make dry-cured meats the old fashioned way?

Freddy's in Cicero and Riviera come to mind--both make sopressata. I've tried Freddy's, both mild and hot and really liked both, but especially the hot. Will try Riviera soon. (Both are mentioned in this thread.)

Kristen

K,

Freddy's also makes their own prosciutto. I think Riviera's sopressata is better then Freddy's, though neither has the proverbial 'depth of flavour' that sends one into ecstasy.

Antonius

Antonius wrote:Freddy's also makes their own prosciutto. I think Riviera's sopressata is better then Freddy's, though neither has the proverbial 'depth of flavour' that sends one into ecstasy.

Very interesting... I will say that the stuff from Freddy's did cause minor ecstasy, but I am a sopressata newbie. A Brooklyn-transplant friend mentioned that she really liked "sweet" sopressata she could get there. Do you know what this is, and have you found anything like it around these parts?

ps: A (&A), The youngest Lehner arrives today for a summer in Chicago--maybe a Laschet's get together is in order?

KL5, have you tried the salume at Avec? It tasted the most like European meats of anything I've had here (although I liked Riviera's a lot). It's expensive, but outstanding. I don't think sopressata was one of the meats we had but the things we had were certainly in the same family.

Mike G wrote:KL5, have you tried the salume at Avec? It tasted the most like European meats of anything I've had here (although I liked Riviera's a lot). It's expensive, but outstanding. I don't think sopressata was one of the meats we had but the things we had were certainly in the same family.

I have, but a long time ago. I remember liking the lomo the best, but everything was fantastic. I'll bet there was sopressata, as I remember some dried sausage with big chunks and peppercorns... I also remember being slightly shocked about how fast my husband and I could eat $12 worth of dried meat. It's been too long since I've been to that place (and Blackbird as well!)

I've tried the salumi at avec and, while it was very good, it didn't wow me relative to the fare I've had at Salumi in Seattle or, even, much of the product I've tried at Zingerman's in ann arbor.

The best soppressata I've had in Chicago was made by a non-foodservice customer of JP Graziano's. It was porky and fatty and spicy and salty and everything I could possibly want in a sausage.

Inspired by this thread, I headed for Riviera yesterday to buy some sopresatta. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that they close at 5. So I went to a deli around the corner and bought some imported "flat" sopresatta, Italian provolone and olives from a nice Italian lady with copper colored hair. It was not the best salami I have ever had, but it was pretty darn good, and she sliced it so thin it was almost transparent. On the way home, I stopped and got some Armenian basturma and a loaf of crispy crusted bread. Just for good measure, I also bought one of those Bosnian dried sausages and a surprisingly good bottle of Montenegran wine. When I got home, I sliced a yellow tomato, roasted a red pepper, opened a jar of pepperocini, and held my own little international festival of dry-cured meats. So if there is any substance to the USDA's crusade against the dangers of dried sausage, I'm a goner.

Update: I was at Freddy's today and they are out of their homemade sopressata, both hot and mild. They said it would be two weeks. Sorry!