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Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing
Charcuterie —a culinary specialty that originally referred to the creation of pork products such as salami, sausages, and prosciutto—is true food craftsmanship, the art of turning preserved food into items of beauty and taste. Today the term encompasses a vast range of preparations, most of which involve salting, cooking, smoking, and drying. In addition to providing classic recipes for sausages, terrines, and pâtés, Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn expand the definition to include anything preserved or prepared ahead such as Mediterranean olive and vegetable rillettes, duck confit, and pickles and sauerkraut. Ruhlman, coauthor of The French Laundry Cookbook , and Polcyn, an expert charcuterie instructor at Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan, present 125 recipes that are both intriguing to professionals and accessible to home cooks, including salted, airdried ham; Maryland crab, scallop, and saffron terrine; Da Bomb breakfast sausage; mortadella and soppressata; and even spicy smoked almonds. 50 line drawings
416 pages, Hardcover
First published November 21, 2005
311 people are currently reading
3384 people want to read
About the author
Michael Ruhlman
45 books356 followersMichael Ruhlman (born 1963 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American writer. He is the author of 11 books, and is best known for his work about and in collaboration with American chefs, as well as other works of non-fiction.
Ruhlman grew up in Cleveland and was educated at University School (a private boys' day school in Cleveland) and at Duke University, graduating from the latter in 1985. He worked a series of odd jobs (including briefly at the New York Times) and traveled before returning to his hometown in 1991 to work for a local magazine.
While working at the magazine, Ruhlman wrote an article about his old high school and its new headmaster, which he expanded into his first book, Boys Themselves: A Return to Single-Sex Education (1996).
For his second book, The Making of a Chef (1997), Ruhlman enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America, completing the course, to produce a first-person account -- of the techniques, personalities, and mindsets -- of culinary education at the prestigious chef's school. The success of this book produced two follow-ups, The Soul of a Chef (2000) and The Reach of a Chef (2006).
Ruhlman grew up in Cleveland and was educated at University School (a private boys' day school in Cleveland) and at Duke University, graduating from the latter in 1985. He worked a series of odd jobs (including briefly at the New York Times) and traveled before returning to his hometown in 1991 to work for a local magazine.
While working at the magazine, Ruhlman wrote an article about his old high school and its new headmaster, which he expanded into his first book, Boys Themselves: A Return to Single-Sex Education (1996).
For his second book, The Making of a Chef (1997), Ruhlman enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America, completing the course, to produce a first-person account -- of the techniques, personalities, and mindsets -- of culinary education at the prestigious chef's school. The success of this book produced two follow-ups, The Soul of a Chef (2000) and The Reach of a Chef (2006).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
January 26, 2014
I got Salumi together with Charcuterie, by the same authors. This review will cover both books.
Charcuterie covers sausagemaking while Salumi is about dry curing whole cuts of meat. Both books focus heavily on the Italian styles.
The books contain a great deal of information regarding their topic (the word charcuterie encompasses sausages, cured meats and other foods such as pates and terrines). Unfortunately, some of this information is incomplete, misleading or simply wrong. For a full discussion of errors, search the usual food-related forums.
The books themselves are very nice, with beautiful photographs. In my opinion, this betrays the principal weakness in the books: They can't decide if they're cookbooks or coffee table food porn. The text reflects this, with little essays and anecdotes about the authors' childhoods, travels etc. interspersed with the recipes and techniques. This is per the standard of foodie books, but frustrating for the reader who wishes the authors covered more ground and properly tested and proofread their recipes.
On the plus side, the books are informative (when they're correct...) and the many line drawings and diagrams included are useful for learning Italian-style pork butchering.
If you're interested in making Italian-style cured meats and can tolerate the silly filler, these are probably the books to read. Just remember to check online for corrections...
Charcuterie covers sausagemaking while Salumi is about dry curing whole cuts of meat. Both books focus heavily on the Italian styles.
The books contain a great deal of information regarding their topic (the word charcuterie encompasses sausages, cured meats and other foods such as pates and terrines). Unfortunately, some of this information is incomplete, misleading or simply wrong. For a full discussion of errors, search the usual food-related forums.
The books themselves are very nice, with beautiful photographs. In my opinion, this betrays the principal weakness in the books: They can't decide if they're cookbooks or coffee table food porn. The text reflects this, with little essays and anecdotes about the authors' childhoods, travels etc. interspersed with the recipes and techniques. This is per the standard of foodie books, but frustrating for the reader who wishes the authors covered more ground and properly tested and proofread their recipes.
On the plus side, the books are informative (when they're correct...) and the many line drawings and diagrams included are useful for learning Italian-style pork butchering.
If you're interested in making Italian-style cured meats and can tolerate the silly filler, these are probably the books to read. Just remember to check online for corrections...
April 26, 2021
Really nice overview of charcuterie, with illustrations, general method and specific recipes.
March 31, 2020
I've been making my own sausages for a while and a planned (albeit now scrapped) opportunity to harvest a ton of boar meat, I wanted to make the jump to salumi. This is the place to start. Easily accessible for with reasonable kitchen experience. This is more of an overall lesson in approach to charcuterie instead of a straight-forward cookbook, although there are tons of recipes. Immediately went out to get some porkbelly so I can have some bacon and pancetta curing right now. If you are interested in getting your feet wet to curing meat, this book is awesome.
December 28, 2012
Christmas 2011 was what my wife called my meat themed Christmas. I got a meat grinder and sausage stuffer. And I got this book. I immediately started to red this book. I started doing my meat projects (and documenting them on my blog www.nobodybeatsmymeat.wordpress.com) and I was fascinated. My first project was home cured bacon.
With my meat bible in hand (this book) I have taken off down the road of meat curing. I am even trying to start a business all do to this book. I found my passion.
With my meat bible in hand (this book) I have taken off down the road of meat curing. I am even trying to start a business all do to this book. I found my passion.
March 28, 2024
Salt is the Cure of all evil
The information that provided in this book is Priceless ! The explanations about salt and how different brands of salt have different weights was an enlightenment to say the least. This book covers everything you need to know to make any type of cured food.
From vegetables to fish , meat to marinades this book has it !!! Fantastic read!
The information that provided in this book is Priceless ! The explanations about salt and how different brands of salt have different weights was an enlightenment to say the least. This book covers everything you need to know to make any type of cured food.
From vegetables to fish , meat to marinades this book has it !!! Fantastic read!
August 12, 2023
In theory, this could have been a good book, but I found Charcutería: The Soul of Spain by Jeffrey Weiss to be much better at dealing with similar subject matter.
Read
June 13, 2019How to conceptualize read dates of a cookbook? I've settled for when I enjoy enough in it, passed on through memos and internet posts, to find a copy and read through dogearing pages or hand-copying.
While the title and description imply a need for lots of space and specialist tools, there's plenty in here doable with saucepans and knives in an apartment kitchen, and even moreso with a porch or balcony in a mild climate. The pancetta, especially, was amazing and didn't need much more than a dangle from a planter hook.
While the title and description imply a need for lots of space and specialist tools, there's plenty in here doable with saucepans and knives in an apartment kitchen, and even moreso with a porch or balcony in a mild climate. The pancetta, especially, was amazing and didn't need much more than a dangle from a planter hook.
June 19, 2022
This books goes try into all the different areas of a broad category that is charcuterie without really nailing any of them really well. It does have some good tutorials and a few good recipes but overall I think there are better books out there.
July 6, 2017
This is a fabulous book for anyone that loves charcuterie. It is on my bookshelf and I refer to it all the time as a reference and also for the recipies. Worth the investment
November 26, 2018
The first cooking book that I've like enough to read cover to cover--literally.
March 14, 2019
Very Informative. Brilliant.
October 21, 2019
Excellent! And fyi, there’s recipes for all kinds of poultry sausages and variations of potted meats and fish too! Great recipes!
December 17, 2019
Must for beginning in the world of curing.
June 10, 2020
Lots of clear directions and wonderful explanations of so many charcuterie techniques. I can’t wait to try more of them!!
February 5, 2021
So excited to fire up my smoker and have a larder full of sopressatta. If I can do this, I will die a happy woman.
June 12, 2021
This has been a great guide, holding my hand until I had the confidence to create on my own.
December 23, 2022
Great information and recipes
July 29, 2023
A classic, Ruhlman’s words and Polcyn’s mind. Tried and true recipes that work. I was a student of his 20 years ago and it’s the same solid message, same delicious food. A must have.
Want to read
August 27, 2024A
July 1, 2017
Good read good recipes
If you want to smoke cure or Brian this is an excellent book.
I made the maple bacon and corned beef, they both came out delicious!
If you want to smoke cure or Brian this is an excellent book.
I made the maple bacon and corned beef, they both came out delicious!
January 20, 2016
The book gives a broad introduction to curing meat with salt, smoking (cold and hot), fresh sausages, emulsified sausages, dry-cured sausages, pates and terrines, the confit technique, rillette, and some highlights of sauces and condiments which traditionally accompany charcuterie.
I am most familiar with the techniques and recipes for fresh and smoked sausages and enjoy their treatment here. Of the hard learned wisdom I've picked up over the past 10+ years, there were no major tips I found missing or suggestions which I strongly disagreed with. This is a great introduction to home sausage making and includes advice for the home chef which was excluded from Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing: 4th Edition. I have referred to Rytek's book as the bible in the past but would suggest Ruhlman and Polcyn's work here as a better starting point for the initiate.
The treatment of emulsified sausages, pates, terrines, and salume were all eye opening for me. The recipes don't require specialized equipment and assume that the cook has access to a food processor, stand mixer, meat grinder and an oven. The authors are very clear about which aspects of the preparations are vital (e.g. taking every precaution against letting the fat warm when preparing an emulsion) and which are less important (e.g. the specific type of terrine mold you use).
Aside from the recipes themselves, Ruhlman's passion for the topic shines through in each section. He makes a point to touch on the history, chemistry and safety of each of the major techniques prior to diving into the details. Ruhlman's near reverence for the topic at hand preempts the modern chorus of low-fat, low-salt crusaders. By celebrating the humble origins of charcuterie (what to do with the scraps of meat that we have no use for?) while simultaneously praising the more demanding baroque preparations, the authors have clearly made the case for charcuterie's place of prominence within our culinary hierarchy. That they have done this in a manner which is accessible and useful to the home chef is a triumph.
Minor ding from me for using grey-scale illustrations rather than color photos throughout. Particularly for cured meats, the color is an important aesthetic outcome as well as an indicator to the chef as to how the product turned out. This being a 10-yr anniversary update, color photos would have been great.
This book is a must-have for the dedicated home chef looking to up their game and at least a must-read for the novice home sausage maker looking for a solid reference to get started from.
I am most familiar with the techniques and recipes for fresh and smoked sausages and enjoy their treatment here. Of the hard learned wisdom I've picked up over the past 10+ years, there were no major tips I found missing or suggestions which I strongly disagreed with. This is a great introduction to home sausage making and includes advice for the home chef which was excluded from Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing: 4th Edition. I have referred to Rytek's book as the bible in the past but would suggest Ruhlman and Polcyn's work here as a better starting point for the initiate.
The treatment of emulsified sausages, pates, terrines, and salume were all eye opening for me. The recipes don't require specialized equipment and assume that the cook has access to a food processor, stand mixer, meat grinder and an oven. The authors are very clear about which aspects of the preparations are vital (e.g. taking every precaution against letting the fat warm when preparing an emulsion) and which are less important (e.g. the specific type of terrine mold you use).
Aside from the recipes themselves, Ruhlman's passion for the topic shines through in each section. He makes a point to touch on the history, chemistry and safety of each of the major techniques prior to diving into the details. Ruhlman's near reverence for the topic at hand preempts the modern chorus of low-fat, low-salt crusaders. By celebrating the humble origins of charcuterie (what to do with the scraps of meat that we have no use for?) while simultaneously praising the more demanding baroque preparations, the authors have clearly made the case for charcuterie's place of prominence within our culinary hierarchy. That they have done this in a manner which is accessible and useful to the home chef is a triumph.
Minor ding from me for using grey-scale illustrations rather than color photos throughout. Particularly for cured meats, the color is an important aesthetic outcome as well as an indicator to the chef as to how the product turned out. This being a 10-yr anniversary update, color photos would have been great.
This book is a must-have for the dedicated home chef looking to up their game and at least a must-read for the novice home sausage maker looking for a solid reference to get started from.
February 19, 2017
The most comprehensive book on the subject out there.
September 30, 2012
I don't read cookbooks cover-to-cover but I've trawled through this enough to get everything I can out of it until I need a recipe.
Cool book, very interesting topic. It's fun to realize that food preservation was once a matter of necessity, but that even with refrigeration, canning, freezing, vacuum-sealing, etc. we still continue to salt, smoke and cure things because it tastes really good.
Many of the recipes are a bit out of my reach, I don't have smoking equipment and my climate doesn't really give me a place to hang meat to try, but I've actually made a few of the recipes including salt pork, corned beef and fermented dill pickles. The DIY corned beef and fermented pickles were amazing, I would recommend everyone who likes to cook try to make these. Both are pretty easy, although take a lot of calendar time to allow for curing or fermentation. The real dill pickles were quite a treat, among the best pickled things I've ever had and a unique taste you're not likely to be served in a restaurant.
Cool book, very interesting topic. It's fun to realize that food preservation was once a matter of necessity, but that even with refrigeration, canning, freezing, vacuum-sealing, etc. we still continue to salt, smoke and cure things because it tastes really good.
Many of the recipes are a bit out of my reach, I don't have smoking equipment and my climate doesn't really give me a place to hang meat to try, but I've actually made a few of the recipes including salt pork, corned beef and fermented dill pickles. The DIY corned beef and fermented pickles were amazing, I would recommend everyone who likes to cook try to make these. Both are pretty easy, although take a lot of calendar time to allow for curing or fermentation. The real dill pickles were quite a treat, among the best pickled things I've ever had and a unique taste you're not likely to be served in a restaurant.
December 29, 2007
I received this book for Christmas and just finished reading it. I tend to skim many of my cookbooks, but this one I read cover to cover. I enjoy Ruhlman's writing (The Making of a Chef, The Soul of a Chef, etc) and in this cookbook he gives an interesting and informative, yet concise background on charcuterie. I wanted this book because I love eating charcuterie and wanted to try my hand at making some at home. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but Ruhlman states that they've been developed with the home chef in mind and most of them look manageable. I'll probably start out with what looks like the easiest one of all: lemon confit. Then I'll try duck proscuitto. Then I want to make my own pate, duck confit and rillettes. The sausage recipes look good too. And make my own bacon...mmmm...homemade bacon.
December 23, 2012
After reading Michael Ruhlmans book I feel more confident to approach charcuterie production at home. It's an interesting read with many formulations to help the novice on their journey to creating artisan meats and sausages in a safe manner. Although, I somewhat dispute the claim that you must add ferment culture and nitrite/ nitrate to dry sausages. I know this from eating and also making Croatian dry sausages with Croatian friends for many years that the only salt used was Kosher or Sea Salt at 2% the total weight of the meat. I also realize from a legal standpoint, claiming otherwise could lead to many lawsuits for the authors of the book if people were to in fact contract botulism. Better safe than sued. But other than that, the book is well detailed on all facets including the proper butchering of pig as well as explaining the parts of the pig and what types of food they create.
March 23, 2009
I decided to read this book more because I'm a fan of Michael Ruhlman in general, not that I actually wanted to make my own sausages.
As with Ruhlman's other books, this was a light, entertaining read. I'd have liked more detail on the technical/historical aspects of charcuterie preparation, but in all fairness that's because I wasn't reading this book as a recipe book per se.
That said, the recipes are easy to follow (kudos for adding pictures), and Ruhlman and Polcyn's passion for charcuterie is obvious and infectious. Think I'll draw the line at brining, though...
As with Ruhlman's other books, this was a light, entertaining read. I'd have liked more detail on the technical/historical aspects of charcuterie preparation, but in all fairness that's because I wasn't reading this book as a recipe book per se.
That said, the recipes are easy to follow (kudos for adding pictures), and Ruhlman and Polcyn's passion for charcuterie is obvious and infectious. Think I'll draw the line at brining, though...
November 4, 2013
This is a very well written and comprehensively researched book. The illustrations, depicting cuts of meat or "how to" do specific tasks are very are clear and lessen the disappointment of not having photographs of the finished dishes. I probably would have given a 4 or 5 star rating - but I don't eat pork. This is essentially a compendium of pork heavy recipes and techniques despite the inclusion of some beef, poultry and vegetable recipes.
March 12, 2014
Great collection of information and recipes about an art that has fallen out of the popular conscience. I greatly enjoyed the narration and appreciated the resources in the back of the book. My only disappointment (and it isn't small) is in the complete lack of pictures. The choice could have been made for reasons of cost or convenience and either are valid. For me - pictures greatly enhance the experience and my desire to reproduce the author's creations.
July 22, 2008
I want to learn to dry and preserve meats, and was hoping this book would teach me how to do so safely. It was a 300 page book with about 5 pages of useful general information on preserving food, and 295 pages of fancy epicurean recipes for doing so.
Mostly I learned that wet, thick, air dried preserved meats need nitrates, while thinner, quickly dired meats do not need them as much.
Mostly I learned that wet, thick, air dried preserved meats need nitrates, while thinner, quickly dired meats do not need them as much.
January 28, 2009
Yeah, this is what I am talking about. It was fun buying 2lbs of pork belly from the Korean grocer, skinning it, salting it and hanging it for 2 weeks in my parents' basement. Best pancetta I've ever had.
My one beef with the book--how can you possibly write a "definitive book" on charcuterie and only make passing reference to Spain? Huh?
My one beef with the book--how can you possibly write a "definitive book" on charcuterie and only make passing reference to Spain? Huh?
Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews