Gone are the days of lackluster charcuterie platters: Meat enthusiasts have taken the model and run with it, from reinstituting old world methods to creating new rules altogether (vegan charcuterie, anyone?). But even in this age of cured-meat mania, Utah's four-year-old Creminelli Fine Meats stands out from the pack.
The company's allure is twofold. First, there's the Italian-born producer Cristiano Creminelli, whose family has reputedly been curing meat for several centuries (he began as a young teenager).
And then there's the newest product; wild boar salami, a Tuscan-style cured sausage made of Duroc pork belly and field-harvested (read: hunted) Texas wild boar.
The boar roam free on West Texas estates, eating nuts, berries and grasses that impart a deep, gamey flavor to the meat. They're hunted and delivered to Creminelli, who flavors the meat with juniper berries and red wine-soaked cloves.
The resulting salami begs for hearty red wine from Tuscany or Piedmont — and a picnic blanket.
Creminelli's next release, called salami Americano, will be a salami-shaped tribute to pork chops and applesauce, made of pasture-raised, apple-fed Berkshire pork flavored with cinnamon.
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