Salumeria Rosi Opens On the Upper West Side: Lovely Wife Buys Out Store

Salumeria Rosi has finally opened! While an expensive charcuterie and restaurant many not be the smartest thing to have opened right near the sex shop on Amsterdam Avenue (283 Amsterdam Avenue to be exact: 212-877-4800) it was fine by me: even in bad times I have a desperate need for cured pig products. And I was not dissapointed. The lovely wife waited in line, paid cash (this is temporary, but be aware) and bought a quarter pound of a lot of things. Below, a list and an opinion:

• Finnocchiona: A cured salami (salame). Kicks Genoa Salami's butt. Really tasty
• Porceta Piancenti: a rolled ham. Very mild tasting. Not my favorite, but good if you like a mild ham
• Speck. A cured "raw" style ham like Parma. $5 less a pound than their prosciutto di Parma, but a little less intense in flavor. For the extra $5, I'd go with their Parma
• Prosciutto di Parma: This one tasty somewhat more "cured" than ones I have had from other NYC food emporiums. It may be that it was fresh out of the the wrapper, but it was really good.
• Grilled Ham: For $15.00 a pound, this was one of the few non-events. It tasted liked any decent (and half the price) grilled ham. ZZZZZZZZZ.
• Cinghale: their boar sausage was good, but I still think boar sausage is something that people buy to say that they have eaten boar. Don't you all know it tastes like caribou?
  
• They also sell antipasti like caponata, of which we tried the caponata. Quite good, actually. Its he first time I think I have had caponata with rasins (yellow raisins no less) but it worked!

So, recession or not, enjoy Salumeria Rosi. I hope to hit the restaurant up one day, but I could easily just go to the store and stock up on expensive, but tasty, anti-pasti.

Is it Legal? I Don't Know. But Salame Di Felino is Good

Our friends from London are in. And when they come, sausage from Italy follows. Now, I can't explain why they bring good Italian sausages, and not, say, bangers from Ireland, but I do have some ideas. One of the better types of Italian sausages, which is not easy to get in the US because it may be considered raw meat by the FDA, is salame di Felino, a pure pork sausage from Italy. The one gross thing about this salame is that the casing is traditionally pork rectum, which, being thick, allows for a softer, better tasting meat. It helps not to think to much when you eat one. The sausages consist of nothing but pork, salt, and potassium nitrite.

This particular sausage is from Salumeria Angelo Mangili, which is located in Bergamo, a Northern Italian town that has gotten more popular with Brits because Ryan Air's "Milan" flight lands somewhere near there. The place is located at VIA GOMBITO 8 ,24129 BERGAMO (BG), Telephone +39.035.248774, E-mail: a.mangili@libero.it. Its clearly a place to stop if you are doing a cheap weekend excursion with a Brit.

We have had several Salame di felino over the past few years. The one that we received from our friends is a Ditta Cav. Umberto Boschi-Felino: quite tasty. If you can get over the rectum part, its rather tasty.

Yet More Pork Goodness From the Milan Airport

Several months ago, our friends in England managed to get us an excellent salame from of all places, the Milan Airport. This was made by our friends at Ferrarini. Beats the Ho Hos you get here. Anyway, one of them was back, and the other made sure that she provided me with not a mere salami, but in fact a large chunk of Prosciutto Crudo Stagianato made by the same company. It turns out they are known for their cooked and raw hams.

This one is quite a tasty Parma style ham if you ask me (the company sells authenticated Parma ham as well. The company web site proudly points out that each ham is marked with its factory provenance, so you know exactly where it was cured. They also make no bones about the fact that this is essentially cured raw meat. Well, its still tasty.

My one issue is that this is a ham that calls for razor thin slices, and I do not have either an electric slicer or a madeline (both are too terrifying to someone who uses his fingers for a living). A good sharp Global knife helps, but the experience is a reminder of how nice it is to have someone slice your meat for you.

I have emailed the Ferrarini USA people to find out if this excellent ham is available here. It turns out their salamis are! Hopefully, they are available somewhere near me.

Ferrarini Salame Nostranino

I would like to thank our friends from London for yet another salame: Ferrarini's Salame Nostranino. What is amazing to me about this salami is that it was purchased in the duty free shop in Milan. When I looked at their website, I realized that Ferrarini is a large Italian conglomerate (with a poorly translated, yet amusing website). So its pretty cool that airport salami from a major Italian conglomerate is actually really good!

The salami is in a natural casing, which is covred in mold. The salami consists of large pieces of pork and fat, as well as whole peppercorns. In the Tuscan style, the salami is not acidic.

Ferrarini has an office in the midwest somewhere (based on their map). I emailed them to see if they had any products available in the US.

The bottom line: airport grub in Italy is better than much of the stuff we buy is specialty shops here.

Salame Cinghale or "Boar is More"

Our friends from London have returned (at least 3 out of the 4). The fourth one, a frequent traveler, has sent them to the US with several salamis for me to try. Ah, the joy of traveling friends. Today I am going to write about the first of these salami's: a mixture of wild boar and pork. Italians love wild boar, and although you can get a true Italian Cinghale Salame in the United States, its not easy. Even in Italy, some of the boar meat is imported from Central Europe. So receiving a Cinghale salami is a treat.

The salami itself is quite tasty. Like a good Italian Salami from the North (Tuscany, we think), the salami, in a natural casing, is not too acidic in taste. It was mildly chewy, but not overly so. This particular salami was a mixture of normal pork and boar, but there is still a noticeable, it subtle, difference in flavor. I am looking forward to getting back to Europe myself to try some of the other available brands. The salami was one of the tastiest pre-pack salami's I have eaten.

The New York Times had a recent article in their travel section on eating Wild Boar in Italy. Check it out. In terms of actually getting the stuff here, a Google search showed only one purveyor, diBruno. However, I will keep looking to see if there are others.

Oldani's "Filsette Salame"

I finally made it to Rafetto's on Friday. Although I have not had time to eat the many different kinds of ravioli that I bought, I was able to try the salame: Oldani's Filsette Salame from St. Louis. Oldani's itself is located on Edwards Street in the Italian Hill Section of St. Louis. In any case, the sausage is a perfect fit for a place like Rafetto's: it is a natural casing pork sausage with a natural, moldy rind. The sausage is hung to dry in a string basket.

Oldman's Filsette salami is a very mild, minimally acidic salame. In many ways, it tastes similar to Salme Di Felino from Parma. It is somewhat more garlicky, which I like, but tastes a little less like "fresh" pork. It tastes distinctly different from soprasotta/soprasetta and makes an excellent counterpoint to these much sharper salamis on a plate. All in all, Oldman's Filsette is an excellent salami. It is a very tasty salami, all in all. I have not seen it for sale anywhere else in New York (but I could be wrong), but it was for sale on the web, although for $12 more than the $8 I paid for it.

Dry Sausage in East Hampton Italian Classic

The lovely wife, boy 1, boy 2 and I spent the weekend in East Hampton with the Lovely Wife's Sister and Brother in Law. Besides fishing (on the Persuader, captained by the able and informative Captain Jim Krug (see post above), we ate well as my brother in law can really cook! I am going to try out his leek recipe and see if I can replicate it. However, by this afternoon, we were all sort of beat and wanted a quick easy meal. We picked up this meal at Villa Italian Specialties (7 Railroad Ave., East Hampton, NY, 631-324-5110).

Villa Italian was for many years owned by the Naclerio family, which sold it to the group that owns, among others, Nick and Toni's. Having said that, the place still has the look and feel of a traditional Italian appetizing store. We bought the Village Combo, their classic sandwich of ham, salami, pepper ham, provolone, lettuce, tomato, peppers, and dressing. This is a really tasty sandwich. The boys had chicken parmesan sandwiches, which were also quite tasty. I tried stuffed peppers, which were good. There is a large collection of fresh sausages, which my sister in law tells me are quite good.


Although the place is worth going to for the sandwiches, the thing that caught my eye were the handmade dried sausage. They have both sweet and hot sopresata / sopraseta. Although these are not made on the premesis, and therefore may be of variable quality, I decided to try a hot sopresata. The sausage has a pleasantly mildly moldy natural casing, and was not "too dry." The sausage was a bit rubbery, but way better than any processed sausage brand. It is a definite repeat for dry sausage if you are in East Hampton.

Red Wine With Salami: Nah!

I am obesessed with dried sausage. I am just to lazy to seek it out. So, every time I see a new brand in a store I buy it, in the hopes that somehow I will find ambrosia in an intestinal casing. The latest salami to cross my knife is Giovanni Volpi and Companies "Chianti" brand. Packed in paper, the salami looks like a fresh salami. My new lesson on trying this turkey is don't judge a book by its cover or a sausage by its outer casing. Its whats inside that counts.

Inside, the salami is sealed in plastic. When you cut through this layer, there is a somewhat difficult to remove plastic casing holding the meat together. And, although there is a distinct chemical taste to the salami, there is no evidence of Chianti, or any other wine for that matter. No wine smell. Nothing. I kept thinking it was me in my dislocated shoulder splendor, but in fact Ian Knauer at Epicurious agrees with me. And he is right.

So the hunt continues for a decent salami thats available from more than one vendor. So far, the leaders are Soprasata Veneta (an easy first) and the extremely expensive Fra'mani . I will continue to report on the losers. But somewhere out there there is a champion!

Salame Di Felino: From Italy to Us (via London)

I would like to thank our friend from London for bringing me an authentic Salame Di Felino from Italy. Salame Di Felino is a classic Italian Salame: deeply red, well marbled and made from pork, garlic, peppercorns and white wine. The pigs used are the same as those used to make Parma ham. The salame is in a molded natural casing, and is tied with rope and hung to dry. It is so important in Parma that there is even a museum celebrating it! The salame we had was made by Cavalier Umberto Boschi.

This particular salame is actually rather mild tasting, and has a bit of an aftertaste. Because of the low acidity, it has a mild, almost soapy afterntaste that is pleasing but not normally what you taste in preserved meat. The meat is clearly of good quality, and it is flavorful without being overspiced. It received the thumbs up not only from me and other adults, but also from boys 1 and 2, and assorted other boys (and girl) that happen to be here at Fire Island this Saturday night.

I have not seen this salami for sale in the US. There is a guy on Chowhound who may know: I will keep everyone informed.

Links:

Il Forno (from 2004)

Sopressata in Plastic: Columbus Renaissance Brand

After my unfavorable review of Columbus Brand Calabrese Hot Salame, I stated that I would try other salames from the Columbus Renaissance line to see if the issue was the specific flavor of salami or if the problem was their shrink wrapped salami in general. With that in mind, I bought a chub of Columbus Renaissance Brand Sopressata (their spelling) yesterday.

The answer is: a little bit of both. The overall flavor of the sopressata is much better than that of the Calabrese Hot salami: it in fact tastes like sausage and not like Slim Jim. And I do appreciate the fact that you do not have to refrigerate this sausage at all before opening it: making it great for long picnic trips and people with a desperate need for decent Italian dry sausage in places where you can't get it. Having just returned from St. George, Utah, I now know such places still exist. But if you live in New York or any other place with access to fresh dry sausage, there is

There are several reasons to do so. First of all its cheaper! Ounce for ounce, regular Columbus Salame cost less than the Renaissance brand at Zabar's. And Zabar's has a better selection of both types compared to either Fairway or Citarella, at least on the Upper West Side. Fresh Direct has nothing: you need to get out of your apartment and shop for real food. Secondly, it tastes better. Third of all, its a pain to get that shrink wrapped plastic off the food.

Although I am still trying to get up to Arthur Avenue, at the moment my favorite dry salamis are still Sopresata Veneta and the various sausages I had from Caputo's in Brooklyn. Columbus brand is widely available, and the fresh varieties are quite good.

Columbus Brand "Calabrese Hot Salame"

I have long been a fan of the Columbus Salame Company. I even liked (although I admit have not been able to eat again) their crespone salami that uses a colon casing. I often buy their "All Natural Salame" as it is widely available at specialty stores such as Zabars. So I was a little surprised when I purchased their "Calabrese Hot Salame" and found it tasted like rubbery pressed pork product and chemical spices. It sort of reminded me of a large Slim Jim. I have a few thoughts on why this may be the truth.

If you look at the photo of the salame, you can see that its shrink wrapped. If you look at the label it says "Renaissance" on the top. It turns out that Columbus makes salame under several different sub-brands. The salames that I have liked are all under the "Columbus" brand. None of them has been shrink wrapped. Columbus has a seperate "Renasissance" line. My guess is that this is the shrink wrap line. Their web site provides no clear distinction as to what the difference in their brands is and I have emailed the company for more information. Unfortunately, it appears that they feel obligated to do something (press the meat to much or more preservatives) to make their shrink wrapped salame last longer than their regular brands.

In all fairness, I will try another "Renaissance" salame type to see if it is any better, but at the moment I am recommending only buying their regular line for your dry sausage needs.