Giving birth to salami.
Even before all my dirty pork talk on Twitter I was typecast as the salami guy. During the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival I hosted a discussion on salami with the big sausages from Don. It got messy with a late night on the town with a few of us and a couple of wide-girth extra spicy salami.
Then I’m invited to the salami making day at De Bortoli in the Yarra valley with guest, fellow twitterer and blogger Tammi as it happens who got her hands dirty with pig.
Ribs, simply seasoned with salt and pepper, aren’t much more memorable than when they come straight from the slaughtered pig to the BBQ to the mouth, gnawed at and torn at cave man – or woman – style. Hot chestnuts burnt our fingers and mouths. Last year’s Salami filled our bellies.
What astonished me is the interest in making salami and the slaughtering of pigs, in this case three porkers, fattened on acorns, called brick, stick and straw. I guess there is a movement back towards the origins of what we eat among genuine enthusiasts. Then there are the ones who just want to turn up for the ride or the booze.
I kept myself respectable, being paid to write a thing or two about the day despite a couple of pre-9am grappas, later a young sangiovase straight from the barrel, and strips cut from whole BBQ’d pig as well as last years salami.
Anyway, Tammi has the full story here. And you can see more of my unedited pics here.
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