(Photo courtesy of Matthew Fidler)
Everyone loves Italian-style salami, whether it’s on a pizza, in a sub sandwich or stacked on a cracker. But this savory seasoned sausage is often avoided due to its unhealthy nature since it’s often processed using highly carcinogenic preservatives like sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite.
Hoping to change consumers’ perception and acceptance of salami by steering clear of any harmful substances to produce an all-natural product that can be devoured without concerns, Redmond’s Chef Matthew Fidler, owner of We’re The Wurst catering, has a simple solution.
His secret? It’s sea salt for natural curing, something as basic and elemental as one could imagine. Steering around insanely complicated and confusing restrictions used by the government’s USDA, Fidler is confident that his healthier salami will be an attractive option for consumers and restaurants to serve up flavorful, domestic salami made right here in Oregon.
“Ten years ago I started as a Bend food truck doing bratwurst, and it’s the age-old problem of businesses solving problems,” Fidler tells CBN. “If I were happy with what was in the markets, I would never be in business. About five years ago I became USDA-approved for sausages. We were selling in stores and basically what we’re doing today is continuing the sausages. I make salami because everything out there gives my son a headache, gives me a headache, it’s a proven carcinogen, and that’s not even the worst part.
“There’s a whole brand of product out there labelled as “uncured.” The problem is that it’s misleading, but the government has deemed that it’s okay. It’s misleading because consumers are led to think it doesn’t have any nitrates in its ingredients. But it has backdoor nitrates. It has celery powder. Then as a consumer you think, ‘Oh, that’s just celery powder, I use celery all the time.’ And while that might be true, you might be getting naturally occurring nitrates. The problem with celery powder used in uncured meats is that it’s highly refined for nitrates only.”
With anything that shakes up the status quo, it hasn’t been easy to bring this pioneering product to market. There were regulatory hurdles to overcome lasting three years. Now the salamis are safely curing in his Redmond drying chamber and will be ready for market later this summer.
“It’s really stupid that this product is revolutionary,” he adds. “The product is just age-old salami using sea salt. There’s nothing special about it. If you go over to Italy or Eastern Europe, they make it exactly how I make it. But our government is so dumb that it’s taken me years to get this program approved with the USDA. This salami program has been seen and combed through by twelve different doctors and PhDs and microbiologists. It’s totally asinine that it’s been this difficult to make a product this simple. But that’s the state of our system of food in the U.S.
Literally, my salami is pork, sea salt, wine, spices, and garlic. That’s exactly how ma and pa have done it over in Europe and haven’t killed anybody in forever. Yet to do it in this country and see how long it’s taken, we’re only number two in the nation to get approval and that’s crazy.”
The only way for Fidler to obtain the necessary USDA seal of approval is to wait five months from the point where the sausage is ground to when he’s allowed to sell it, which for some reason satisfies their tough protocol in order for it to be considered scientifically nitrate-free.
“It only takes about a month to ferment, cure, and dry-age a salami. But because of the nature of how little scientific data there is out there for this type of endeavor, it takes five months to get a product to where I can get a monetary return on it. This first batch will be ready for buyers in about two months. I have a strong demand for it already through our customer base and every single time anybody hears about it they want to buy it. I can only make 1,000 pounds in one shot and that loses 50% of its weight during the curing and aging period. That’s the reason why we do business, right? Is to create a good product and to have satisfied people willing to wait.”
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