Click to enlargeRace for the Cured
Oliver Schwaner-Albright
finds winning Salumi
New York Times Magazine
Spring 2007

Col. Bill Newsom's Aged Kentucky Country Ham gained a listing in the New York Times Magazine's spring 2007 issue. Columnist Oliver Schwaner-Albright took a look at some of the products from American artisan meat sources. He writes. . .

"The meat slicer could be the first appliance to earn a place on the kitchen counter since the espresso machine. That's because American artisans are no longer hiding the salumi -- Italian for cured meats. The process by which cuts of meat, usually pork, are salted and aged in a place that's cool, dark and drafty, like a mountain cave (the traditional method) or a well-ventilated meat locker (the Food and Drug Administration's preference), is now being mastered on these shores."

. . .Newsom's aged ham has been produced in the same facility, one that has been likened by some to a crypt housing the results of the family artistry with pork. . .

Schwaner-Albright reviewed bresaola, coppa, lardo, mortadella, prosciutto, salame, soppressata and speck. He listed the Newsom reference in his comments about prosciutto.

"PROSCIUTTO A ham hind leg that's been boned, salted, air-dried and traditionally ed for eight months, prosciutto is the big game of salumi. Most prosciutto is crudo, which means salted when raw and then aged. . . . Rarer still is prosciutto cotto, where the leg is cured and then cooked. You can find it at Col. Bill Newsom's Aged Kentucky Country Hams in Princeton, Ky., and as the center piece of the artisanal ham tasting at Manhattan's Bar Americain."