This clear and expert guide shows how to safely cure, smoke and hang your own pork and other meat and fish products, with 300 photographs.
An accessible and expert guide to the age-old craft of preparing meat and fish products by home curing, salting and drying.
The air-dried products include hams, lomo, lardo, coppa, bresaola, and salami – Milano, Toscano, Felino, Finnochiona, piccante, venison – as well as chorizo, sobrasada, and kielbasa. There are brine-cured hams, chine, salt beef and pastrami, pressed tongue, confit duck, pates, terrine, haggis, and faggots.
There are sausages, of course, including black and white puddings, dry- and brine-cured bacons, guanciale, pancetta, lamb and mutton bacon, and dry-cured rack of lamb.
There is jerky and biltong, and cured gravadlax and rollmops, and smoked foods including salmon, bacon and ham. Shown in clear, step-by-step photographs, the techniques are straightforward to follow: the author ensures safe practise at every stage for quality results, and his love of these traditional products shines through, describing home charcuterie as an almost magical process, and one to be enjoyed.
Having graduated with a degree in Biochemistry in 1999, Paul Thomas worked in the cheese industry for over a decade before becoming a dairy technologist and food safety adviser to dairy businesses across the world.
Paul has taught cheesemaking courses at the School of Artisan Food and at River Cottage, among many other highly regarded training centres. His first book, Home-Made Cheese, was published by Lorenz Books in 2016.
Paul was also on the writing team that prepared the European Guide to Good Hygiene Practices in the Production of Artisanal Cheese and Dairy Products, a guide endorsed by the European Commission and published within the official journal of the EU.
Paul is a consultant for the Guild of Fine Foods, and writes their DeliHelp column. His research into charcuterie began when he started to make his own cured meats while working as a cheesemaker on a farm in the south of England. He is one of the judges in the upcoming British Charcuterie Live Awards 2020.