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Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing
by Michael Ruhlman, Brian Polcyn
ISBN-10: 0393058298
ISBN-13: 9780393058291
ISBN-13: 9780393058291
Region: USA
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Publication Date: November, 2005
Recipe Index
Publishers Information
About Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing
Publisher Web Link: http://books.wwnorton.com/
The only book for home cooks offering a complete introduction to the craft.
CHARCUTERIE—a culinary specialty that originally referred to the creation of pork products such as salami, sausages, and prosciutto—is true food craftsmanship, the art of turning preserved food into items of beauty and taste. Today the term encompasses a vast range of preparations, most of which involve salting, cooking, smoking, and drying. In addition to providing classic recipes for sausages, terrines, and pâtés, Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn expand the definition to include anything preserved or prepared ahead such as Mediterranean olive and vegetable rillettes, duck confit, and pickles and sauerkraut. Ruhlman, coauthor of The French Laundry Cookbook, and Polcyn, an expert charcuterie instructor at Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan, present 125 recipes that are both intriguing to professionals and accessible to home cooks, including salted, airdried ham; Maryland crab, scallop, and saffron terrine; Da Bomb breakfast sausage; mortadella and soppressata; and even spicy smoked almonds. (http://books.wwnorton.com/)
Author Information
About Michael Ruhlman
Author Web Link: http://ruhlman.com/
The best things in life happen when you get carried away. I went into a cooking school to write about what it means to be a chef, and instead I became a cook, got a job line cooking, lucked into one of the great restaurants of the world to work with the chef on his book, and I kept on writing about food. I got carried away, and it’s made all the difference.
The facts are these: Born 1963 in Cleveland, graduated Duke in 1985 with a BA in literature, worked at The New York Times as a copyboy where I managed to slip some stories into most sections of the paper, departed after fewer than two years to pursue a desultory life of writing, travel and odd jobs, returning to Cleveland with my wife, Donna, a newspaper and magazine photographer, in 1991. Found work at a local magazine covering arts and cultural scene and here began writing about chefs and cooking.
My first book, Boys Themselves (1996), revealed life at an all-boy day school that was defiantly all-boys at a time when anything all-boys was considered toxic and anything all-girls was great for girls.
A committed cook since fourth grade, I proposed to the Culinary Institute of America, the oldest and most influential professional cooking school in the country, that I be allowed into its kitchen classrooms in order to write a narrative of how the school trains professional chefs. The school agreed, and I wrote The Making of a Chef (1997), rereleased in 2009 in a new paperback edition.
I became so fascinated by the work of the professional cook and the culture of the restaurant kitchen that I continued to pursue the work and wrote a book about chefs and cooking, The Soul of a Chef (2000). I co-wrote The French Laundry Cookbook (1999) with Thomas Keller at the same time, and he and I subsequently wrote a food column for the Los Angeles Times for two years.
In February 1999, I moved with my family to Martha’s Vineyard to research and report on life at a yard making plank-on-frame boats for the book Wooden Boats: In Pursuit of the Perfect Craft at an American Boatyard (2001). In October 2000, I began work at the Cleveland Clinic’s Children’s Hospital for the book Walk on Water (2003). I wrote it concurrently with A Return to Cooking (2002), with Eric Ripert, chef-owner of Le Bernardin, the Manhattan four-star restaurant.
Other books include House: A Memoir, about the purchase and renovation of a 1901 house in Cleveland and an exploration of the nature of home in our vagabond culture, and The Reach of a Chef: Professional Cooks in the Age of Celebrity. Other cookbooks include Bouchon, written with Keller and the others from the French Laundry Cookbook team, about French comfort food, and Under Pressure, the first American cookbook to explore the possibilities of sous vide cooking. I was a contributor to the Alinea, Grant Achatz’s tour de force on the new new cuisine. I wrote Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing–a thinly veiled love song to the pig, to animal fat and salt, sausages, confits, pates, terrines–with my friend, the Michigan chef Brian Polcyn.
I have been on several television shows, “Cooking Under Fire” on PBS, and, on the Food Network, I was a judge on the “Next Iron Chef,” appear occasionally as a judge on “Iron Chef America,” and have been a featured guest on the Travel Channel’s “Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations,” Las Vegas and Cleveland episodes.
In 2007 I published The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Craft for Every Kitchen, “an indispensable compendium of cooking information for both professional and amateur cooks constitutes a precise, unpretentious, unencumbered culinary handbook” (Booklist). I realized one day leaving a food writers symposium that I’d spent so much time in kitchen and so much time with the country’s best chefs that I had a huge amount of knowledge about cooking, information that would be valuable to anyone who cared about cooking, from professional chefs to committed home cooks. Needing a structure for all this information I turned to one of my favorite books about the craft of writing, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. The book contains essays on the fundamentals of cooking and a deeply opinionated glossary of important cooking terms we all need to know.
My most recent book is Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, a book devoted to understanding the relationships between our most basic ingredients and how those relationships form the backbone of the craft of cooking.
This fall two new cookbooks I’ve had a hand in will be published: Thomas Keller: At Home with Ad Hoc, the fourth from this team, and Symon Says: Live to Cook, a cookbook from my friend, fellow Clevelander, Michael Symon, chef-restaurateur (Lola/Lolita) and an Iron Chef Food on Network’s “Iron Chef America.” Donna and I continue to live in Cleveland Heights with our two kids, writing, shooting and cooking. (http://blog.ruhlman.com/)
Cookbooks by Michael Ruhlman
About Brian Polcyn
Chef Brian Polcyn is an award-winning chef and charcuterie expert. Chef Polcyn is nationally recognized for his creativity and culinary talents, and as the visionary behind some of Detroit’s most acclaimed restaurants.
While still in his 20s, Polcyn honed his skills at two of Michigan’s most prestigious restaurants, The Golden Mushroom under Certified Master Chef Milos Cihelka and The Lark. He created four of Michigan’s most prominent restaurants before opening the Forest Grill in Birmingham, Michigan.
In 1987, he debuted at Pike Street Restaurant in Pontiac, Michigan. Within weeks, food critics were heaping kudos on Chef Polcyn and his culinary team. In 1990, he premiered Chimayo, Michigan’s first restaurant featuring authentic Southwestern cuisine. Three years later, he created Acadia, an area trendsetter specializing in foods cooked over various hard woods.
Polcyn opened Five Lakes Grill in Milford in 1995 and it has been going strong for well over a decade. His devotion to culinary excellence and supporting local purveyors has made him a culinary icon in Michigan and in the United States.
In 2000 Chef Polcyn was prominently featured in Michael Ruhlman’s widely read book, “The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection”. That takes the reader through Chef Polcyn’s grueling weeklong Certified Master Chef practicum and exam at the Culinary Institute of America. Chef Polcyn and Ruhlman teamed up in 2005 to publish “Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing.” “Charcuterie” was also nominated for a James Beard Award.
With a growing demand for Chef Polcyn’s gastronomical expertise and rumors of his return to the heart of Oakland County, mainly the Birmingham area; Chef Polcyn’s pursuit of a second restaurant came to fruition in the summer of 2007. Forest Grill opened its doors in the summer of 2008. The location was right, it was the right time, and now he has the right team for the Birmingham Forest Grill project. The Forest Grill is an American bistro that provides fine food to its neighbors and guests. It incorporates elements of traditional European cooking techniques, modern American cuisine, and exceptional ingredients.
Chef Brian has been featured in local and national publications, including The New York Times, The Detroit News, Atlantic Monthly, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Playboy, Detroit Hour Magazine, The Detroit Free Press and Wine Spectator.
His numerous awards include three gold medals and a silver medal from The American Culinary Federation. The Hiram Walker Corporation recognized him as a “Rising Star in American Cuisine.” In 1990, he was first runner-up in the semi-annual American Culinary Gold Cup Bocuse d’Or, which is a competition that seeks America’s top native-born chefs. Five Lakes Grill won best restaurant in 2005. Chef Polcyn was also nominated for Best Chef Midwest in 2006 by the James Beard Foundation. He has cooked several times at the James Beard House in New York City, participates at the Traverse City Epicurean Classic, and the StarChefs International Chefs Congress.
Chef Polcyn is also a faculty member at Schoolcraft College where he teaches charcuterie. He is also involved with many local charities, such as Michigan Chefs Against Hunger, Share Our Strength, Children’s Leukemia Foundation of Michigan, and National charities like the Taste of the NFL. Giving back to the community means a lot to him.
Chef Polcyn and his wife Julia, have five children. He enjoys spending time with his family. When he is not in the kitchen, at school or with his family you can find him in the skies. Chef Polcyn is a licensed pilot.
(http://www.theforestgrill.com/)
