Fra'Mani Charcuterie by Paul Bertolli

[artisanbaker]

i just had some for the first time and i can say that it's the best stuff i've had this side of the atlantic. rustic flavors, plenty of fat, and NO HEAT. i hate the heat i get from the additives in most dried salame.

looking forward to trying some of the other products in moderation as they can be costly (no implication that i believe it to be overpriced)

http://store.framani.com/index.html

Edited October 20, 2006 by artisanbaker (log)

[tupac17616]

i just had some for the first time and i can say that it's the best stuff i've had this side of the atlantic. rustic flavors, plenty of fat, and NO HEAT. i hate the heat i get from the additives in most dried salame.

looking forward to trying some of the other products in moderation as they can be costly (no implication that i believe it to be overpriced)

http://store.framani.com/index.html

Agreed. Picked up some sopressata at Fairway last month, and loved it. I definitely need to get around to trying the other Bertolli salumi very soon.

[Fat Guy]

The Fra'mani salametti are the best salumi products I've tasted anywhere. I'm sure there's someplace in Italy where you can find better, but Fra'mani has become my benchmark for great salumi.

In New York City they always have a few of the salametti sitting on top of the Fairway deli counter -- not where the rest of the small salumi are found. The stuff is not cheap -- the individual salametti run a little less than 3/4 pound and tend to be priced around $16 -- but it's worth every penny. With many food products, if you pay double you get a small improvement in taste. The Fra'Mani stuff is, however, an order of magnitude better than anything else I've been able to find.

The salametti are noteworthy not only for their beautiful soft texture and subtle flavorings that don't rely on spice as a crutch, but also for the incredible blue-cheese-like bloom on the casing. The complex flavors are more like a wine experience than a food experience -- just amazing.

You can get all this stuff by mail (link in the first post on this topic), and you should. If you're a home salumi maker, this is what you should be aspiring to. If you're a lover of salumi, this will give you perspective. It will spoil you, though.

[russ parsons]

paul rocks. things were a little rough at the very beginning, but he has really hit his stride. it's interesting to compare fra'mani with salumi (batali, sr.). they're both delicious, but salumi is over-the-top exuberant while paul's is much more based on the classic values of pork and salt and time.

[rjwong]

Personally, I like their Salame Nostrano the best. Dry with intense flavor ...

Now, I'm hungry.

[Chris Amirault]

I second Steven's recommendation of the salametti, which I first had at his dining table two weeks ago in NYC: a remarkable experience. I brought back some and have been blowing everyone away here in Providence. We've had nothing like it before.

My wife pointed out that the interior texture is unlike any supposedly similar charcuterie in large part because the meat and fat, while clearly distinguishable to the eye (the stuff has perfect definition), meld in a magical way in the mouth.

[Fat Guy]

it's interesting to compare fra'mani with salumi (batali, sr.). they're both delicious, but salumi is over-the-top exuberant while paul's is much more based on the classic values of pork and salt and time.

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I've only tasted a couple of samples of the Salumi salumi, but if they're representative then I don't think Salumi and Fra'Mani are quite in the same league. The stuff I tried from Salumi was excellent, just as the house-made salumi at several restaurants and butchers here in town (Otto, Faicco, Salumeria Biellese, Calabria, Esposito's) is excellent. And I take your point about exuberance. But I really feel that Fra'Mani is making something that's a cut above.

I'm going to navigate my way through Salumi's Byzantine ordering process (you have to submit a request and have it approved before they'll let you call in your credit card information) and see if I can assemble enough samples to do a little tasting.