charcuterie

Two things in life that I LOVE: charcuterie and cheese. I get happy when I think about crumbly, fermenty hard cheeses, dripping with forest honey, followed by mouthfuls of prosciutto and jamon, thinly sliced bread drizzled with olive oil is washed down with an artisan ale. Okay, it all sounds a bit pompous, and I know it’s all the rage amongst the hipster crowd to go for $30 plates of dick-all at the minimalist eateries hidden in back-alleys near skid-row, but I love it nonetheless.

My love affair with cured meats began when I went to Spain last September. I remember trying prosciutto that my dad bought me at IGA when I was in high school, and I clearly remember not liking it. It was cold, clammy, and altogether too weird for my teenage palate. Fast forward seven years and I can’t get enough of it, although, call me a snob, but I steer clear of the supermarket variety these days. There is an amazing salumi vendor on Granville Island, Oyama Sausage Co., and from what I hear, they supply many of the hip eateries in Vancouver.

Anyways, back to Spain, it had been some time since I’d tried cured meat, mostly because I had just come out of a five year period of vegetarianism, and my memory of it was less than thrilling. Well, it took about half a bite of Jamon Iberico to change my mind. Shaved razor thin, served on a small slab of bread, or just on its own, and washed down with a quarto of beer, I was in love.

Spain was a veritable meat-fest. Jamon and chorizo became daily staples as I trekked across the country on the Camino de Santiago. The best part was that it was almost cheaper than water. I’d find myself in a tiny cobbled town that you’d be hard-pressed to even locate on a map, and in my broken Spanish I would ask for directions to the grocer. This often consisted of a big wooden door that might, if you were lucky, open after five minutes of doorbell-ringing into a little old lady’s pantry. Of course the bigger towns and cities all had proper supermarkets where you could find any number of meats and cheeses, but it was the romance of stumbling into a gloomy little cellar and asking for cheese, meat and bread, and walking away with a slab of cheese carved off the wheel, a chunk of chorizo that had been hanging from the rafters, and a loaf of fresh bread that made the experience so unforgettable.

I won’t lie, after a month of this I never wanted to see another piece of chorizo again, but to meat and cheese I was hooked. When I got back to Vancouver, I was a fully fledged carnivore, with a new found taste for all things cured. I dabbled in duck confitting, read up on sausage-making, and became smitten with spreads. This love-affair led me to start searching out the hip little eateries that served up these simple treats. Imagine my shock, coming on the heels of 2 dollar chunks of chorizo the length of my forearm, when I went for a charcuterie plate and all I got was two pieces of cheese and a couple slices of sausage for $15. Add a couple beers or a nice wine, a few extra pieces of meat, and you’re looking at $45 a head for a late night nibble. That’s about 1/5 of the price of a meal at French Laundry, and all it consists of is a palm sized serving of meat and cheese washed down with a few swigs of beer.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s fun once in awhile, but frankly, I’d rather go straight to the source. Short of setting up a curing room in my garage, that means heading down to the aforementioned Oyama. And let me tell you, the menus at these eateries pale in comparison to the selection offered by Oyama. We’re talking 10 different types of chorizo alone, 20 different salamis, a good 15 pates, not to mention a range of wild-meat sausages, and a whole slew of cheeses. And so I loaded up:

-Brick of parmesan: $8.50
-Brick of pecorino: $6.50
-Prosciutto: $3.50
-Chorizo: $3.00
-Pates: $7.50

I splurged and bought a fancy beer from Dogfish for six bucks, Midas Touch, made with barley, honey, white muscat grapes and saffron, and backed it up with a six-pack of Liberty Ale. And so for less than my measly palm-sized serving in hipsterville, I’d gathered enough goods to eat myself silly over the course of the coming week. The prosciutto was rich and buttery, the chorizo brought me back to Spain, but it was the pate that stole the show (of course by pate I mean pâté but I can’t be bothered to search for the accents everytime I go to type it). I bought two sorts: duck and apricot pate and porcini mushroom pate. WOW. The porcini was the real showstopper; rich, silky-smooth meat and fat infused with the intoxicating earthiness of mushrooms.

Anyways, tonight I put together a simple plate with some bread, prosciutto, chorizo, both cheeses, smoked himalayan salt, olive oil, and fig-stuffed green olives. This was accompanied by the Dogfish ale, which I might add was phenomenal. If you don’t know it, go out and find it, you will not be disappointed.