SALAMI HEROES
APART FROM HAM, bacon and sausages, there is no inherited Angloceltic tradition of charcuterie in this country, and a great many New Zealanders have never experienced the deeply complex flavour of authentic European salami. This possibly explains why Australasian mainstream salami and bierstick producers are able to get away with selling us such cheap imitations, made by adding soy to bulk out the meat, acidifiers to compensate for greatly sped-up fermentation processes, and phosphates to bind the water to the meat, thus reducing moisture loss for the sake of boosting profits. However, we do have a small band of artisan producers dedicated to making salami in the same painstaking way as their counterparts in Italy and Spain, by using a starter culture to ferment the raw pork, and then ageing the salamis for up to two months. By this stage they have shrunk, losing up to 40 per cent of their weight through evaporation, yielding a slightly tangy, totally delicious flavour:
POAKA
Uniquely, Josh Hill’s Berkshires, Wessex Saddlebacks and Tamworths are finished on acorns in the tradition of Spain’s legendary jamón ibérico, as well as chestnuts grown on his father’s Canterbury farm. About 90 per cent of his output goes into making superbly complex salami in the southern Italian style.
WOODY’S
Because he is ideologically committed to using every part of every pig that arrives from Longbush Farm, Daniel Todd turns out a mind-blowing variety of smallgoods, including steamed mortadella and traditionally fermented and cured salami.
THE HUNGARIAN ARTISAN CO
Based at Te Puna on the outskirts of Tauranga, Hungarian-born chef Attila Kovacs and his English-born partner Samantha Darragh use recipes that have been in the family for hundreds of years. Hungarian salamis and Goan chorizo are made with free-range pork and involve traditional salting, smoking and dry-curing for four or five weeks. Eschewing fillers and artificial ingredients, the only base flavourings are paprika, garlic and cumin, sometimes with additional Kashmiri chilli, porcini, truffle, pink peppercorns and fennel seeds.
THE BLACKBALL SALAMI CO
While some early Dutch producers (such as Bells) did make honest salami for New Zealanders for a period in the 1950s and 60s, the modern pioneer was Pat Kennedy, who in 1992 opened his tiny salami factory at remote Blackball near Greymouth. Current owners Phil and Debbie Russ still offer Pat’s original lean venison salami, but now also cure Italianstyle salamis with added fat.
MARTINEZ CHORIZO
Martinez is named for charcutier Vaughan Stanley’s late father-inlaw – Spanish restaurateur Manuel Martinez. Vaughan trained as a chef in Switzerland and formerly lived in Spain with his wife Nadine. The Cromwell-based couple import their own smoked Pimentón de la Vera directly from growers in Càceres, and their naturally cured chorizo is guaranteed to spoil you for those other New Zealand-produced ‘chorizo’, showing little paprika flavour and mistakenly made fiery hot.