We caught up with the good folks at Boccalone to discuss their San Francisco based salumeria.

hen it comes to cured meats out there in San Francisco, there is only one name that comes to mind, Chris Cosentino. Not only is he the future of Californian cuisine but he is also leading the pack in the area of charcuterie & cured meats.  He opened up Boccalone, which is an artisinal salumeria, located at the Ferry Building Marketplace in downtown San Francisco.  This fledging company now offers 20+ varieties of handmade cured meats.  We caught up with Tatiana Graf, who is Boccalone’s Executive Vice President as well as Chris Cosentino’s wife, and gained insight on Cosentino’s cured meat empire.

How did you and Chris create such a unique brand?:

Chris started curing meats in the restaurant, experimenting, testing things out.  Making things like pate, mortadella, salumi. Testing them out on the customers and he got great responses from it the last 6 or 7 years. And people loved it so much, it was so well received that eventually we decided to turn it into its own company. Maybe that’s a little nutty but, it took us about 2 years to figure out how to do that and then we launched Boccalone. We found the right opportunity for it and here we are. We’ve been in the Ferry Building for a year and a half.

So where is everything made?

The plant is where we make everything ourselves. The plant is tiny. If you think of other salumi makers/producers, ours is at least 1/5 the size of any other you can think of. We took over an old Portuguese sausage company before that operated for almost 100 years. The previous owner who had it for 60 years retired. He didn’t give us any recipes but he did sell us the building. It’s very small. We do as much as we can there but mainly that’s only enough to keep the store stocked and a few whole sale accounts and a few local restaurants.

Why hasn’t there been any branded competition for you?

The main reason why nobody is doing it is because it is hard, it’s really difficult. It’s a labour of love. I think there is a renaissance of cured meats happening particularly in the Bay area and a few other places in the States too. Fra’mani started before us and we really appreciated that they sort of kept open the door and have really given us room to grow, which is fantastic and we thank Paul Bertolli for that as we learn a lot from them.

Where do you see this Cured Meat Renaissance going?

I sort of think the way salumi or charcuterie is right now in the United States, I think it’s the way artisan cheese was say 20 years ago. When Laura Chenel stared making fresh goat’s cheese, “chevre” and that swept across the country and that opened the door for a lot of other small artisan cheese producers to follow. I’m hoping that we are just on the crest of the wave of what’s happening right now with salumi and charcuterie.

How is Chris Cosentino handling the limelight?

I don’t know that I really can speak on his behalf but I think he really loves the attention, he loves being in the spotlight and he loves spreading his passion for great food, particularly for salumi. He’s just having fun with it. You know, it’s not worth it if it’s not fun.

For more info on Boccalone, go to http://www.boccalone.com

Interview & Photography by Chuck Ortiz.