# Anyone own the book Charcuterie?



## Cooky (Apr 25, 2011)

Anyone own the book Charcuterie? Written by Michael Ruhlman, it's supposed to be the best book out there about smoking and curing meat. I'd like to know if it's worth the money.
Thanks,
Cooky


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

I have _Charcuterie _and _Salumi _by Ruhlman and Polcyn.

Ruhlman is a chef and has penned over 20 books. I'm a fan of his and often glean his website: http://ruhlman.com/2010/10/home-cured-bacon-2/. I smoke and cure meats like he does, but by coincidence, not from me reading his books. _Charcuterie _is a recipe book. There's a short section on the history of meat curing and the basics of curing and smoking meat and sausages. The remainder of the book is recipes and there are some good ones. I wouldn't call the book "blue collar". For example there's lots of duck recipes, but no wild duck. But hey, he's got a recipe for sweetbreads; all great cooks have recipes for sweetbreads. :smile: _Charcuterie_ is well-written, down to earth and easy to understand, and it's part of my cooking library these days. I'm still trying to get thru all the recipes. There are only a few pictures, no photographs. If you purchase _Charcuterie_ try to get the "revised and updated" edition, a little more bang for the buck.

Ruhlman's second meat curing book is _Salumi._ (Note that _"Salumi"_ is cured meat and _"Salami"_ is cured sausage.) It covers the "Big Eight", the most popular dry-cured meats; prosciutto, coppa, lardo, spalla, guanciale, lonza, pancetta, and salami. The big eight is 7 parts of the hog plus the scraps that are ground into salami. I'm doing the Big Eight and using _Salumi_ as my guide for 5 of the 8 different cuts. By the way, bacon, is not in it. Bacon is an American thing. The recipes in Ruhlman's guides are more European, if I may. _Salumi_ is a great book, one of my go-to books for dry-curing.

If I had to pick out one meat curing and sausagemaking book it would be _Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing_ by the late Rytek Kyutas. It's been around for nearly 40 years and I'm on my 3rd book; wore out 2 of them.

Another great resource is the Len Poli sausagemaking website: http://lpoli.50webs.com/Sausage%20recipes.htm I like the fact that all the recipes have the ingredients listed by weight instead of volume. That's more accurate and easier to figure out the amounts if working with varying amounts of meat.

_The Venison Sausage Cookbook_ is my favorite for wild game sausage formulations. It has a really good "how to" section.

Jerry Predika's _The Sausage-making Cookbook_ is good but hard to find.


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## Cooky (Apr 25, 2011)

Thank you Sir. You are, as always, a fountain of knowledge.


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