Charcuterie

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Charcuterie (from either the French chair cuite, cooked meat, or the French cuiseur de chair, cooker of meat) is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products such as sausage and confit, primarily from pork. The practice goes back to ancient times and can involve the chemical preservation, or curing, of meats. Since charcuterie can greatly extend the lifetime of meat, it is a means of using up various meat scraps that would have otherwise been wasted. All cured meat Hams, whether smoked, air-cured, salted, or treated by chemical means, are charcuterie products. Sausage making is also part of charcuterie.

The main techniques of charcuterie include the standard kitchen repertoire of poaching and baking, as well as salting or dry curing, brining, air drying, and smoking with and without heat. The room-temperature treatments involved in air drying and cold smoking introduce a host of food safety issues, and so curing salts are often used to prevent the spread of dangerous pathogens, particularly C. botulinum, or botulism.

The French word for a person who prepares charcuterie is charcutier, generally translated into English as "pork butcher." This has led to the mistaken belief that charcuterie can only involve pork. The Food Lover's Companion, however, says that "it refers to the products, particularly (but not limited to) pork specialties such as pâtés, rillettes, galantines, crépinettes, etc., which are made and sold in a delicatessen-style shop, also called a charcuterie." And the 1961 edition of Larousse Gastronomique defines it as: "The art of preparing various meats, in particular pork, in order to present them in the most diverse ways."

The word can also refer to a delicatessen, a meat shop that specializes in primarily pork products, or that part of a supermarket that specializes in meat products such as hams and sausages.

[edit] See also

• Cold cut
• Salumi

The Road Dog aka Triple MG Triple Triple was once thought to be to primary knowledge bearer of all that is Charcuterie.

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