Sausages, salami, capocollo and pancetta hanging out 2014

I don’t know if anyone can really know for sure what their earliest childhood memory is, but if I had to say, I think one of mine would probably be making salami and sausages at my Zia’s house. More than the salami itself, I remember the pig out the back on the farm. My cousins would take me down to see the big fat smelly thing, always joking that it would soon be salami.  My dad recalls the array of Veneto-style smallgoods they produced each winter, such as pansetta (pancetta), salami, capocollo, coessin (cottechino sausage) and offal-laced delicacies. Sadly, when my Zio passed away many years ago, no one was game to take on the role of rearing the pig and ahh… shall we say, turning it into salami.

I’d like to be entirely ‘nose to tail’ in my approach to meat like they were back then, but if I’m honest,  giant offal sausage is a concept  I’m yet to grasp and the smell of cottechino boiling on the stove makes me gag everytime I walk into the house. Still, it makes me sad that the tradition of living truly ‘nose to tail’ has been largely lost in our family for over 25 years.

Good news is, with a little more time on their hands now, my Dad and two Aunties have started to experiment with making sausages and salami again, (but now they buy the meat). Their knowledge is understandably a bit rusty, but each year we try something new, hone the recipe and the array of smallgoods grows…as does the selection of equipment dad engineers to make the job easier! – He really is a creative genius.

One thing you have to understand about my dad though, is that he is rather particular about the way things must be done… to put it lightly. So to even be allowed to touch the salami while they’re making it, is a privilege. Dad is in charge, while my two aunties act somewhat like consultants, advising on technique and attending to the needs of the salami. Everyone else is delegated a single job. For me, that was (precisely) measuring ingredients, for my cousin it’s winding the meat mincer. Pretty exciting stuff, but hey, you’ve got to earn your stripes in this family.

Last year, I was ever so grateful that they let me into the salami sanctum with a camera so I could capture the process and all of its quirks. You might think that once you’ve seen someone make salami, it’s all the same, but every region and each family does things a little differently and it’s all those  things I tried to capture in this incredibly dorky video, complete with an old school Veneto folk song as the backing track.  Now it’s forever floating around in the expanse of You Tube, so one thing is for sure, this family tradition will never be lost again.