‘BRITAIN – home of quality salamis’ is up there with Swiss naval heroes, but UK pork curing artisans have been rivaling their continental cousins of late. Witness the likes of Trealy Farm in Monmouthshire or Three Little Pigs in Yorkshire.
These new wave operations are producing real quality, yet they don’t boast the back story of Woodall’s Charcuterie, a business going back generations with its roots in Cumbria and its current base in the unlikely setting of Trafford Park.
ToM has long been partial to their air-dried hams but wondered if the firm’s new trio of salamis was going to cut the mustard.
Well, one literally does. Woodall’s Norfolk Mustard Salami celebrates Britain’s appetite for the spice brought to Britain by the Romans. Not the reticent Dijon variety; it’s the full-throated Norfolk stuff they use with a sprinkling of mustard seeds in the curing mix.
Then there’s the Spicy Cumberland Salami, chosen for the menus at the Chelsea Royal Flower Show. It adds a substantial chorizo-style pinch of paprika to their standard Cumberland Salami, honouring the sausage legacy that has its roots in the Woodall’s native Cumbrian village of Waberthwaite.
Both exemplary, but our favourite has to be the Black Pepper and Garlic. Pungent, of course, that’s how we like it but with a firm base of outdoor reared pork shoulder, maintaining the standards demanded by master curer Colin Woodall (pictured above in his curing room).
All this preserving of meat to last through winter was second nature to British rural communities before the onset of the Industrial revolution and long before refrigeration. Colin recalls in one interview: ‘Woodall’s was started by my great, great, great, great, great grandmother in 1828. She was widowed at an early age after her husband died on on his way home from church one Sunday morning and she was left with five young kids. Of course back then there was no welfare system, so she began to process other farms’ pigs to make a living.
“This grew and grew until they eventually built a dedicated building at home to meet demand. Every Monday morning in the winter there would be a line of carts outside her door with a pig in the back.’’
So in the unlikely setting of one of our country’s great industrial settings, the tradition is renewed. What goes around, comes around.
Woodalls British Charcuterie, Guinness Circle,
Trafford Park, Stretford, Manchester M17 1EB. 0044 1618646600. You can buy online, but their products are widely available through fine food and farm shops, Booth’s supermarkets and from mid-October Tesco. Expect to pay 2.99 per 70g pack.