Cured for flavor and longevity
Curing is an ancient process that makes meat safe by keeping it inhospitable to the microbes that would otherwise cause rot. Most commonly, this is done by salting, smoking, and drying. When cured slowly and traditionally, these techniques not only make the meat safe to keep, they also make it extra delicious.
We don’t necessarily ship salami with ice packs. Since it’s cured, it’s healthy and happy at warm temperatures. To prolong its life at home keep it refrigerated. But hours or even days at warmer temperatures won’t harm it a bit.
You can’t have a salami without mold
Downy white mold is as essential to salami flavor as blue mold is for blue cheese. Every good salami has mold on it at some point in its life. It’s a sign the salami is aging well; the mold protects the fat from going rancid. If you’re buying one without mold it was probably washed off at some point. It’s edible, but you can also wash it off with a bit of vinegar and water if you’d like. If a little mold returns in time it’s a good sign.
Sliced to order
A whole salami keeps its integrity. It stays moist and sweet. As soon as you slice a bit off the air starts to change the flavor. We ship all of our salamis whole so the flavor stays intact. Slicing them is easy. Don’t worry about slicing thin pieces. Many salami lovers think a little thicker is better.
Don’t be mislead by visible fat
Just because you see more fat in one salami than another doesn’t mean it has a higher fat content. It often means it was ground a little more coarsely. Most good salamis are about 1/3 fat, give or take.
Smaller is bigger
Smaller salamis usually have more intense flavors. In a similar way to wine, where petite grapes have a higher skin to fruit ratio and therefore more tannins, small salamis have more rind to meat ratio, therefore the rind molds have a greater effect on flavor. Smaller salamis also expel moisture faster which intensifies their flavor.
Use your senses
A good salami has a short ingredient list with no corn syrup. It is glowing pink on the inside, but not too red (in which case it might be artificially colored). It has a sweet, porky smell with clean flavors and no chemically, powdered garlic aftertaste or sourness which is a telltale sign of a bad cure.
Like with most traditional foods, if you serve salami at room temperature you’ll get a lot more flavor than if it’s eaten cold, just out of the refrigerator.