Creminelli: a Beautiful and Inspiring Slow Food Success Story

When Jessi from Edelman and To Kiss the Cook invited me to a tasting of new products from Creminelli Fine Meats, I expected a feast of cured meats. I'd sampled and thoroughly enjoyed Creminelli's salamis before, and knew what a delicate and tasty product they produced. I fully expected to walk away sated, full, and happy. But I did not expect to walk away inspired and thrilled. The story of how a lovingly crafted artisan product was handed down from generation to generation and recently came to America, is one that gives me hope for the Slow Food movement and thrilled me.

Beautiful pic by Jenn from the Whole Kitchen

I could have listened to Cristiano Creminelli talk about prosciutto and salami for weeks in his charming Italian accent, hearing about how this father began training him to make salami as a young child. When Cristiano was 4 years old, his father took him to a slaughterhouse. I thought his story would then veer into some horrible anecdote about screaming pigs, but he explained that the pigs must be killed humanely in a serene environment or their flesh is ruined by blood vessels burst from stress. The pigs are treated to a few days in pasture and are killed calmly with a jolt of electricity. Instead Cristiano remembers the smell and color of the meat, and began his lifelong love of the well-fed and well-loved pigs.

The Creminelli family has been making cured meats in Italy since the 1600s and like his father before him, Cristiano began working in the family salumeria with his father. But he had always been drawn to America, and had always dreamed of coming here to live. He began making his dream come true by searching for the perfect American pig. He spend a full year going to farms across the country, interviewing farmers, asking them what their pigs ate and how much time they spent outside. After a year of searching, he finally found a few farms that produced beautiful pigs, some Berkshire, some Duroc, and even some wild boar from Texas. Then he began to build his American salumeria in Salt Lake City because of its dry climate.

It took Cristiano 18 months to convince the FDA that his products were safe to consume. He uses no nitrates and no artificial chemicals, and monitors each salami every two hours to make sure the quality remains top notch. Demand for his salamis grew rapidly and he quickly moved to a larger curing facility. Now Cristiano has decided to introduce America to the rest of the Creminelli line of cured meats: coppa, prosciutto cotto, mortadella, prosciutto crudo, and coppa cotta. Different cuts from different parts of the pig, each more buttery and intricately flavored than the next. My favorite was the mortadella and the prosciutto, both were so smooth and delicious that I could have eaten them all day, without being overwhelmed with salt or bitter aftertastes.

You'll be able to sample these new offerings from Creminelli soon at your local fine food market - in many Whole Foods across the country and smaller stores like the Marion Cheese Shop here in Oak Park. You can also go online to the Creminelli website to order packages of their dried salami directly.

And then, once you've got your own schmorgasbord of cured pork goodness, you too might be making a face like me, so torn as to which pretty pig part to sample first.
When Jessi