Charcuterie are prepaired meat products such as sausage, terrines, rillettes, confit and patés to name a few made primarily from pork.
On Saturday February 23rd the 4th annual Charcuterie Masters competition was held Flushing Town Hall located at 13735 Northern Boulevard in Flushing, Queens.
The “meat lover’s paradise” had pro and amateur chefs competing for the best charcuterie of the night. It was appropriate that in the Year of the Pig the event was held in Flushing, Queens which has one of the largest Asian communities in New York City.
This was the wrong place to be if you didn’t eat pork since there was copious amount prepared meats on hand from both local and international purveyors.
I could have spent the night in front of the big bowl of chicharrónes, noshing on the crispy, crackly bits of fried pork and pork rind that were like “pork popcorn”.
Some of what I sampled:
Casella’s: American prosciutto using exclusively rare breed heritage pigs. They were slicing from two prosciutto made from Berkshire and Red Wattle pigs. Very tasty and happy to see that domestic producers can go head to toe with the Europeans.
Il Porcellino Salumi: A Denver based company, they served several different versions of salami and a Wagu braesola.
Amylos Taverna: Not everything was dried meat, this Astoria restaurant served an excellent roasted suckling pig with lemon potatoes, mint yogurt and lodolemono aioli.
Caseiro e Bom Gourmet House: A meat wholesaler that served several salumi and an iberico ham from the pata negra pig which is always outstanding.
Fermín: A Spanish charcuterie company, they served an excellent iberico ham and a couple of salumi.
Drinking options weren’t extension but they served wines from Rooftop Reds, a Brooklyn based winery using Finger Lakes grapes.
Mikkeller Beers, a Danish beer company brewing beer at Citi Field baseball stadium.
An surprising, Sanfords restaurant poured Macallans 12yr old double cask single malt scotch paired with manchego cheese.
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