First, let’s get the carping out of the way.

Like other recent books by the Marianski’s this one is self-published, through Outskirts Press, and it clearly has not benefited from the services of a professional editor or proofreader. The book is littered with grammar mistakes, typographical errors, and odd locutions. The way the text is organized, they end up covering the same subjects from multiple angles, with the result that they repeat themselves over and over. Sometimes the organization simply seems haphazard, with “notes” appearing at the end of a section which could be more accurately labeled “afterthoughts.” The information presented is clear and accurate; just don’t expect a gripping read.

The most serious flaw is that the book contains no index. I plan to refer to this book a lot, and the only way to track down the subjects I’m interested in is a fairly detailed table of contents (sections are generally no bigger than a few pages and sometimes only a paragraph). I wanted to use the recipes at the back of the book to make a beef salami, but the only way to find out which recipes use beef is to look through them all, one by one.

As an example of the book’s lack of focus, buried in the middle of Part I is the clearest statement of their main point: “There is a difference in fermented sausage technology between the United States and the European countries. American methods rely on rapid acid production (lowering pH) through a fast fermentation in order to stabilize the sausage against spoilage bacteria. In European countries, milder fermentation temperatures are used and the drying, instead of the acidity (pH) is the main hurdle against spoilage bacteria. This provides color and flavor forming bacteria (Staphylococcus) with plenty of time to react with protein and fats and leads to better flavor development” (85).

This is an important point, since it differentiates their book from other ones available in the US that are aimed at the home hobbyist or amateur sausage maker. Other cookbooks that address this subject, such as Paul Bertolli’s Cooking by Hand and Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie both limit themselves to fast-fermented sausages, presumably on the grounds that their rapid inhibition of pathogenic bacteria is the safest practice for anyone working at home.

All of these books call for the use of commercial starter cultures, particularly the ones developed by the Danish company Chr. Hansen, to achieve a proper fermentation of the sausage. But the recipes in Ruhlman and Polcyn’s book only use Bactoferm F-RM-52, which contains strains of Lactobacillus curvatus and Staphylococcus carnosus. As the Marianskis point out, this results in a rapidly fermented sausage with a very low pH (a lot of lactic acid), which inhibits the activity of the Staphylococcus bacteria and leaves the finished product more one-dimensional, with a pronounced sour tang. This flavor profile is traditional for fermented sausages from the north of Europe, but, as the Marianskis stress, it is not appropriate for trying to reproduce fermented sausages from the Mediterranean regions of Spain, southern France, or Italy–home to some of Europe’s greatest salamis. Even in their recipes for northern European sausages, the Marianski’s do not use this starter culture, instead calling for slower-acting ones that they think give a better flavor, namely Bactoferm T-SPX (containing Staphylococcus xylosus and Pediococcus pentosaceus) and Bactoferm F-LC (containing Pediococcus acidilactici, Lactobacillus curvatus and Staphylococcus xylosus).

Slow-fermented sausages are different in other important respects. Although the Marianski’s never explicitly connect the dots, while slow-fermented sausages rely on a decrease in the water activity level to inhibit undesirable bacteria, they take significantly longer to dry out than fast-fermented sausages. That’s because a drop in pH below 5.3 minimizes the ability of meat proteins to bind water, and the fast-fermentation process drops pH to 5 in one day and to 4.8 in two, while the slow-fermentation process is more gradual and usually doesn’t lower pH below 5.3 (graph on page 122). As a result, it takes between three and four weeks before a slow-fermented sausage becomes drier than a fast- or even medium-fermented one (graph on page 123). Although the Marianski’s never explicitly state this, what this means is that slow-fermented sausages are technically much more challenging to produce than fast-fermented ones. In addition to strict food sanitation procedures, slow-fermented sausages require more elaborate monitoring and control of temperature, humidity, and air movement at various stages in their production. Fortunately, in the equipment section of their text, they discuss a number of clever and inexpensive ways to achieve the right conditions, and, in the recipe section, they do give specific instructions for temperature and humidity ranges at the fermentation, drying, and storing stages for each sausage.

So if you’ve tried your hand at fresh and fast-fermented sausages, and you’re looking to expand your repertoire and achieve more authentic and better flavors, this book is definitely a useful addition to your library. As a book dedicated to this subject, they go deeper into the issues of chemistry, microbiology, sanitation, and equipment (for smoking, fermenting, and drying) that all affect the quality of the finished product. The second part contains 50 detailed recipes, with precise instructions, so that even a relative newcomer to this craft can proceed with confidence. This book usefully bridges the gap between simpler cookbooks and advanced textbooks such as Fidel Toldrá’s Handbook of Fermented Meat and Poultry (which sells for $200). At $20, even with all its faults on its head, the Marianski’s book is a bargain.

Tags: fermented sausage, further reading

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