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Process

Boccalone artisan meats combine sustainably raised, heritage-breed pork, Italian sea salt, and the freshest spices with the rarest ingredient of all: time. Our small-batch, hands-on methods and traditional cold curing techniques can take up to ten times longer than other producers'. Why sacrifice efficiency? Because taking our time lets us focus every step of our process on a single goal: great taste.

	Hand Butchering. Whenever possible, we work with whole pigs, breaking them down into the specific cuts that best suit our products. This process requires significantly more time and effort than starting from pre-butchered part.
	Small Batches. Working in product quantities a fraction the size of other producers’ permits us to more easily adjust for any variations in ingredients or production conditions that might affect quality. Smaller batches also mean less chance of over-mixing in products such as salami and terrines, which can toughen the final product.
	Personal Attention. All of our salumi are seasoned by hand, tied by hand, hung by hand, checked by hand, and packaged by hand. This personal attention to detail leverages the expertise of Boccalone’s artisans at every step of the process.
	Less Salt, More Flavor. Adding more salt to salumi makes the curing process go faster, but diminishes the potential for truly great salumi. We believe salumi should taste of meat and spices, not salt. Years of experience have taught us that keeping salt to a minimum takes more time, but produces the best tasting salumi.
	Cold Curing. Most salumi producers force warm air into their aging rooms to evaporate moisture and accelerate the curing process. Boccalone’s aging rooms utilize a different technique enabling us to keep our products as much as 25°-40° F cooler in the drying phase than products aged using forced air systems. Cold curing takes much, much longer, but we’re sure you’ll taste the difference.
	Direct Delivery. Currently our full line of products is only available to our Salumi Society Members, meaning that our salumi go from the hands of the artisans who made them directly into your hands. We offer a few products for direct delivery through our website. We also sell some of our products to a select few chefs and retailers who we know and trust to handle our products perfectly. In the summer of 2008 we will open a salumeria in San Francisco's Ferry Building, where we will offer our full line of products.