{"id":12517,"date":"2017-02-09T14:22:21","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T19:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=12517"},"modified":"2017-02-10T09:11:29","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T14:11:29","slug":"alluring-curing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/alluring-curing\/","title":{"rendered":"Alluring Curing"},"content":{"rendered":"

February\/March 2017 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

The classic preserving methods of curing, smoking<\/strong>, and seasoning meat<\/strong> have become a world of magic for Maine butchers<\/strong> and chefs. <\/span><\/h3>\n

\"FM17-Hungry-Eye\"The traditional meaning and dictionary translation of the French word charcuterie<\/em> is pork butcher shop or delicatessen. In Portland, that doesn\u2019t begin to tell the story. For a city with a widespread reputation for seafood, there is also a thriving demi-monde committed to high-quality charcuterie and salumi<\/em>, much of it made with locally raised meat and poultry.<\/span><\/p>\n

MEATY FRONTIERS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCharcuterie became trendy 10 or 15 years ago, though it\u2019s actually a traditional art and technique, with its origins coming from preservation in the time before refrigeration,\u201d says Pete Sueltenfuss<\/strong>, owner of the Other Side Delicatessen<\/strong> on Portland\u2019s Veranda Street.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNowadays, charcuterie isn\u2019t really limited to just cured meats like ham and bacon. It includes other things like fresh, uncured sausage and p\u00e2t\u00e9, beef, and poultry livers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOther things\u201d are a specialty at the Other Side, depending on what fresh local livestock catches his fancy. A self-taught charcutier<\/em>, Sueltenfuss got his start in the curing and smoking arts through \u201ctrial and error. Then I worked in Boston as sous-chef to Jamie Bissonnette [executive chef of the renowned restaurant Eastern Standard on Commonwealth Avenue], and I learned a lot from him.\u201d Subsequently, Sueltenfuss (pictured above right) moved to Portland to work at Fore Street, Miyake, and ultimately at Grace, where he was executive chef. He left to open the Other Side in early 2015 and will soon add a second location on Vaughan Street in the West End at the site of the old Vaughan Street Variety.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his small, open deli kitchen, he accomplishes many things, including sometimes breaking down whole animals into assorted cuts. He dry-ages beef and lamb, and he makes fresh Italian sausages and delicious chicken Florentine links flavored with mozzarella, Parmesan, spinach, garlic, and lemon. He smokes chicken and bacon in a little smoker right next to his hulking range and pizza oven and cures his own pancetta (pork belly seasoned with garlic and rosemary) and coppa. \u201cCoppa is dry-cured ham, basically, but from the shoulder.\u201d It\u2019s dark and marbled, sliced tissue-thin, with an earthy, salty flavor that\u2019s perfect with an aperitivo<\/em>. These cured items are sliced to order rather than packaged, which is perfect for experimenting with a few slices of this and that to discover what you like.<\/span><\/p>\n

If that weren\u2019t enough, there are his house-made p\u00e2t\u00e9s. He uses Commonwealth Farm chicken livers for silky terrines, Hudson Valley duck livers for his foie gras terrine, and pork he sources from Maine farms including North Star in Windham and Winter Hill in Freeport for his addictive pistachio-studded country pork p\u00e2t\u00e9. \u201cWe flavor it with warm spices like nutmeg and allspice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFresh sausage is a great seller for us. We offer things that people may have not had before, like duck rillettes, that they\u2019ll come back for. Whenever we get whole animals, we\u2019ll do a terrine that\u2019s based on all the offal\u2013innards and organ meat. That can be tough to get people to try, but once they do it\u2019s pretty successful.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s a charcutier who responds to what\u2019s available. \u201cWe had really beautiful veal terrine at the holidays and rabbit terrine when we can get rabbits from North Star Farm in Windham.\u201d Since the Other Side also offers ready-to-reheat dinners, the rabbits also turned up in a rabbit stew with gnocchi. <\/span><\/p>\n

VIVE LA TOURTI\u00e8RE<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Pats_Market_Butchers\"

Photo by Filipp Kotsishevskiy<\/p><\/div>\n

Nothing holds its own in the fickle world of food trends quite like tradition. \u201cWe\u2019re still pretty small-batch, so we can keep the consistency and quality,\u201d says Marc Mailhot<\/strong>, who has run the E.W. Mailhot Sausage Company<\/strong> in Lewiston for the past 20 years. Find Mailhot\u2019s classic Franco-American sausages, pork tourti\u00e8re<\/em>, salmon pies, and cretons<\/em> spreads in many groceries including the butcher section at Hannaford. The company opened in 1910, and \u201cwe just keep making what we make,\u201d says Mailhot. The trendiest thing the company ever did was come out with lower-fat turkey cretons<\/em> in addition to the standard pork version, and that was 25 years ago. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a little one still in school, but if he [joins the company], he\u2019ll be the fifth generation of Mailhots.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the search for sausage tradition, it\u2019s hard to beat the selection at Pat\u2019s Meat Market<\/strong>, the neighborhood butcher\/grocery\/deli on Stevens Avenue.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cWe make sausages every day,\u201d says Hugh Topchick<\/strong>, one of the market\u2019s many personable butchers. \u201cWe have to keep up\u2013they\u2019re really popular.\u201d He\u2019s standing behind a glass case filled with bins of chorizo, sweet and hot Italian, chicken pesto, chicken Sicilian, Buffalo, Caribbean bangers, and Lithuanian kielbasa links. You\u2019ll discover how hard it is to choose.<\/span><\/p>\n

OVER THE BRIDGE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe make all our own sausages. All of the meat here [among them delicious cuts of beef, lamb, pork, and chicken] is from Maine,\u201d says Logan Higger, standing behind the dazzling butcher counter at The Farm Stand on Ocean Street in South Portland\u2019s Knightville neighborhood. The Farm Stand is a \u201cproduce\/butcher\/kitchen\/deli\/wine\u201d collaboration between Farmer\u2019s Gate butcher shop in Wales, owned by Ben Slayton and his wife Erin Cinelli, and Jordan\u2019s Farm in Cape Elizabeth, so there are plenty of fresh vegetables, too. If you can\u2019t find something really wonderful to make for dinner here, you just aren\u2019t trying. Even if you don\u2019t cook much, there are prepared soups and stews to take home and heat up.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI apprenticed with a butcher in Boston, and I\u2019ve been here and at the shop in Wales [Maine, near Lewiston] a couple of years,\u201d says Higger. His enthusiasm is catchy as he directs us to the lengthy chalkboard list of sausages of their own recipes, among them a German bratwurst, Red Belly, Toulouse, Tuscan, Angry Tuscan, Coco Mole, Buffalo Blue, Hot Chili, and Moroccan. We take home the Viking, which turns out to be a keeper, mild pork with a subtle whisper of clove\u2013it\u2019s a real star with buttered egg noodles.<\/p>\n

DELI DELUXE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Try this,\u201d says Polly Wanzer<\/strong>, offering a tissue-thin sliver of Rosemary ham from behind the deli counter at the flagship Rosemont Market<\/strong> on Brighton Avenue. It\u2019s delicately herby. \u201cNow try this.\u201d <\/span>She proffers another pink sliver, this time of Rosemont-Smoked ham. It\u2019s fantastic, redolent of slow smoking over coals, made of organic pork from Common Sense Farm in Unity. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople make up their own charcuterie platters at home,\u201d she says, often because they\u2019ve enjoyed them in restaurants. \u201cAnd they make sandwiches and pizza, or maybe they just want to nibble on some good-quality prosciutto with a glass of wine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rosemont also smokes its own turkey and bacon. And at the adjacent butcher counter, fresh sausages are displayed next to cuts of natural, hormone-free beef, lamb, pork, and chicken, all from Maine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSujuk is probably our most popular sausage,\u201d says butcher Carlos Tirado<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s got an Eastern Mediterranean, sort of Armenian, flavor profile with fennel, fenugreek, allspice, cumin, cayenne, and paprika.\u201d There\u2019s spiced and smoked tasso ham \u201cfor your Cajun jambalayas and dirty rice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe often make local duck and chicken liver p\u00e2t\u00e9s,\u201d says Tirado. \u201cBut some chefs in town make their own p\u00e2t\u00e9s, too, and they buy up a lot of what\u2019s available from the local natural and organic poultry farmers. Guy [Hernandez at Lolita] and Ben [Jackson at Drifter\u2019s Wife] are perennial chicken-liver buyers.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

VARIETY, THE SPICE OF LIFE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We head up Munjoy Hill to the warmth of the crackling open cook-fire at Lolita, a well-known destination for exotic charcuterie, for further research. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone loves Iberico de Bellota<\/em>,\u201d says bartender Matthew Irving. \u201cIt\u2019s the famous Spanish ham made from pigs that are fed acorns. And speck is pretty popular because it\u2019s accessible.\u201d Less well-known is the Violino di Capra<\/em>, goat ham so named for the traditional way the chef would tuck one end of the whole leg under his chin to shave off slivers, as if playing a violin. \u201cIt\u2019s wine-cured and has a hint of juniper. Probably a third or more of the bar-snacking people do here is charcuterie and salumi.\u201d The list is rounded out with crespone<\/em> (a Northern Italian salami), bresaola<\/em> (air-dried, salted beef), and coppa.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about this selection,\u201d says chef Guy Hernandez<\/strong>, who owns Lolita<\/strong> with his wife Stella, \u201cis you could close your eyes and pick any three, and each will be unique. You\u2019ll get a range of flavors and textures.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re shocked to discover the wonderful chicken liver mousse\u2013a Lolita must-have since they opened in 2014\u2013has disappeared from the menu. \u201cI like to move things around,\u201d says Guy Hernandez. \u201cChicken livers are still on the menu, but over here in the small plates section,\u201d grilled and served with currants, saffron, and a side of wilted spinach. \u201cI just made a pork terrine with apple and hazelnut because I had this great piece of pork. We\u2019ll have that on special this week.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When I tell him I\u2019ve been talking to Pete Sueltenfuss at the Other Side, who also finds success\u2013and fulfillment\u2013in varying his offerings, Hernandez laughs. \u201cPete\u2019s old school, too. The kind of guy who likes to take the approach that this is what I have; here is this piece of meat. Now what can I do with it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re all for the quest. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February\/March 2017
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