Old-world taste draws chefs to sausage-making

By Kristin Eddy
Chicago Tribune

You wouldn't have expected to see such a look of pride on the face of a chef whose latest creation is developing a fine tinge of white mold.

The objects of her affection were draped links of homely looking sausage, curing at a comfortable pace and taking on the natural coating that resembles a dusting of confectioners' sugar.

"They look pretty good," she said, beaming.

While many traditional ethnic meat markets have been making Spanish chorizo, Chinese yap cheung, Portuguese linguiqa and German plockwurst all along, these dense, humble and heavily seasoned meats are debuting on the menus of many fashionable restaurants across the country.

Charcuterie — French for the art of curing meats and making sausage — is making a comeback.

Avec is only the latest hot spot to feature the charms of a chubby caccitorini or soppressata.

Suzanne Goin, chef of the restaurant Luques in Los Angeles, last year opened A.O.C., a much-praised casual spot with a wine bar designed to complement the dining room's extensive selection of traditional sausage.

Mario Batali, whose New York City restaurants have helped bring new respect to hearty Italian fare, found an audience for links such as finocchiona, a Tuscan-style sausage with an assertive seasoning of fennel and fennel pollen.

Tom Colicchio's Craft restaurant in New York City offers a selection of house-cured sausages, from mortadella and bresaola to a pistachio- and peppercorn-stuffed porchetta rich with pork jowl and pork fat.

Head northwest and you'll find Feenie's, a bistro that Vancouver chef Robert Feenie opened last summer next door to his award-winning fine-dining restaurant Lumiere.

Featured on the menu, along with creative versions of shepherd's pie and chicken soup, is a selection of Mexican-style chorizo, finocchiona and soppressata.

"What I love about the charcuterie is that it's a casual thing, so it's fun for diners," he said. "It's a good way to start things off."

Farther south, Paul Bertolli, the former Chez Panisse chef who now presides over Oliveto in Oakland, showed off the skills he learned as the grandson of an Italian butcher by giving his customers a taste of, and appreciation for, good European salami.

"I think that really good cured meats are not made enough in this country," Bertolli said. "It has been increasingly difficult to find that old-world flavor. I put it on the menu because I think people have a nostalgia for it. A lot of my customers compare it to what they have eaten in Italy."

At the same time, the public's exposure to ethnic restaurants has increasingly led them to appreciate authentic dining traditions, whether European, South American, Asian or African.

A surge in meat-rich diets related to the Atkins revolution has opened the door that consumers had started to close on protein- and fat-heavy foods.

And a growing sophistication with fine wine and craft beers only adds to enjoyment of hearty sausage.

Bertolli attributes the lack of serious sausage in this country to trade barriers that have hampered the importation of minimally processed meats, as well as the decision by many modern sausage-makers to forgo natural casing, which he said is a much better vehicle for the flavor-enhancing mold.

While developing the Avec menu, Grieveson thought the robust meats a perfect fit for the restaurant's style, which is as comfortable with the idea of guests ordering just a glass of beer or wine and a platter of sliced sausage as it is with them lingering over several courses.

Time-consuming process

As a meal, "sausage is simple," and fits with the other menu items that concentrate on fuss-free marinated or braised foods, Grieveson said.

Making sausage is time-consuming, and learning how to make it takes a long time, too. Grieveson spent a month of 10-hour days apprenticing with a New York sausage-maker before bringing her new skills back to the restaurant. "Salami takes a lot of patience."

Steve Connaughton, a sous-chef and sausage-maker at Battali's Lupa restaurant, said the process is "definitely a hands-on thing."

After weeks of learning from a previous chef to make the rustic ground meats, Connaughton took over. "It's a different game once you get your hands on it," he said. "I felt like I was learning everything again."

There are subtleties in every step, Connaughton explained. The choices include grinding meat and fat to different sizes for different sausages; choosing all pork or a blend of meats; mixing everything in the right proportions; seasoning appropriately; stuffing the casings so there are no air pockets; managing the smoking and finessing the curing time.

"There are endless varieties," he said. "And sometimes you have to wait for months to find out if you have something you like."

Grieveson, too, finds that her new mission to make great sausage can infringe on the time she wants to spend on the rest of her menu. Making the dozen or so types of sausage Avec features requires her attention two to three days a week.

The process begins by portioning a 300-pound pig. The sausage goes through its final paces in a smoker set in an alley beside the restaurant and then in a specially built case in the restaurant's basement, where it cures at about 52 degrees.

So why take the trouble to take on a new craft?

Maybe because increasingly sophisticated consumers realizing there is more to salami than the salty and additive-laden commercial specimens often found topping a million pizzas and stuffing a million more subs.

It could be that cured sausage's day has come, after the success of the wildly flavored fresh sausage now found in almost every supermarket, sporting dried fruits, chopped chilies and sweet spices, with natural, organic and even meat-free fillings.

Creativity boosts flavors

Professional cooks no doubt relish the chance to stamp their own style on a recipe, as with the red-wine-infused and cedar-smoked links that carry the house name at Avec.

"I mix pork with beef or lamb or venison," Grieveson said. "It all depends on what I feel like doing that day. Every one can turn out differently."

"Knowing how to really baby the salami along the way is an art," Connaughton said, "and definitely something you can make your own. There is a lot of creativity involved."

That creativity translates to full flavor for diners.

Sausage offers "a kind of riot of tastes at the front of the menu," Bertolli said. "The flavors are salty and piquant; it makes your mouth ready for the rest of the meal. People love it."

"It's a good way to get the appetite going without having a big meal," Feenie agreed.

All that is really needed to complement an assortment of good sausage is a tangy mustard, sauerkraut or a pickled vegetable to cut through the salt and smoke of the meat; some rustic bread and the right glass of beer, or a bold red or spicy white wine.

"This is food that fits me," Grieveson said.