Chef Brian Polcyn literally wrote the book on modern charcuterie in 2005. Along with Michael Ruhlman, he published Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, and followed that up with Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing in 2012. Just about anyone who has ever experimented with curing meats or grinding sausages either at home or in a restaurant probably has a dog-eared copy of Polycn's first book somewhere on their kitchen bookshelf.
So when Polcyn announced that he was teaching a class in charcuterie here in Nashville last March, the class filled up almost immediately. So fast, in fact, that he opened another two-day session, held last week in the spanking new kitchen at the Music City Center. Nashville is the first market where he has held two classes within a few months of each other, so obviously we have a lot of interest in the topic.
Chef Max Knoepfel graciously opened up the kitchen at the new MCC, and what a kitchen it is! More than 20 chefs, farmers, butchers and meat enthusiasts from as far away as Louisiana, Chicago and North Carolina were all duly impressed by the size and equipment of the massive kitchen, and the class was certainly improved by the access to all the fun gear.
Local chef participants included Deb Paquette from Etch, Jeremy Barlow of Sloco, Brandon Frohne from Mason's, Steve Robilio from Amerigo, Simoni Kigweba of Burger Up, Dario Olivera of 1808 Grille, Robert Spinelli from Perl Cafe, Brett Corrieri from Mafiaoza's and a few others whose names I didn't quite get written down seeing as I was dodging all those flashing knives and whirring grinders. So expect to see those establishments upping their charcuterie game sometime soon!
(The Scene's ace photographer Eric England was also there; check out his slideshow after the jump.)
Another attendee was Bob Woods from The Hamery out in Murfreesboro. He's already known for being a pretty darned talented meat curer, so I can only imagine what he'll do with the knowledge shared by Chef Polcyn in the class.
