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California, tucking cured meats inside. "The whole box smelled like prosciut- to, salami, or soppressata," Bertolli says, adding that his clothes were often perfumed with it, too. "Eating it as a kid had a great impact and inf luenced my taste memory for sure." Fra'Mani's clove-scented soppressata, in fact, is modeled after his grandfather's recipe from Vicenza, the northern Italian province he left behind for America. A Classical Training Bertolli went to work in the Bay Area at the age of 12, sweeping the floors of a meat counter at a delicatessen in an Italian neigh- borhood. By the time he was 14, he was a union–card–carrying butcher. Back then, in the 1960s, carcasses were delivered on rails, he says, and in breaking them down he became intimately familiar with the anatomy of pigs and cows. The deli's 40-foot-long display cases held meat and charcuterie from all over Europe; in the 70s, he witnessed the selection shrinking as industrial farms grew and small producers went out of business. Meat began to arrive in boxes, already cut up. "Things got winnowed down to roast beef, ham, and white turkey breast, and only a few traditional products," he says, noting that the quality went down as well. "We lost a lot of historic wisdom. Old-world sausage makers were dying off." At the time, Bertolli was not in the trade as a lifelong career, instead, he used his paychecks to subsidize his study of classical piano and composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the University of California, Berkeley. That passion led him to New York City for fur- ther training. His sisters went to college in Italy, and acquired Italian boyfriends, the connection that brought him to the town of Treviso, north of Venice. For a year or so, he worked as a waiter, got a job in the kitchen of another restaurant, and wandered the country absorbing the culture. "I wanted to understand the food, what it was like at the source," he says. Upon his return to Northern California, he went back to work at a deli and devoted his spare time to reading everything he could about food, as well as eating at a lot of restaurants. "The real answer to how I ended up in this business is I've always been hungry and lived in a household where great food was being made," he says. "I grew up sur- rounded by pear trees in Marin County, grazing on tangerines, immersed in the smell of food and the growing of food, and was very attracted to it. I had a memory of what I ate and how it was constructed and began making my own dishes and feeling competent at it." Still, his path to establishing Fra'Mani took a few detours. He cooked at Fourth Street Grill, Mark Miller's landmark res- taurant in Berkeley, and moved back to Italy for another year. Working in trattorias and as a private chef, he steeped himself in the tradition of Tuscan cooking. It was a clari- fying experience, he says, and brought into focus the region's "austerity ref lected in the people, place, and history." "I got to know the sharecroppers who worked in the olive orchards, and taste fresh green olive oil," he says. "I learned to make salt-less Tuscan bread in an enormous oven, got to know cheesemakers, and followed around a norcino, who came to the estates and killed the pigs and put up various cuts of the animal." The norcini that Bertolli watched worked with axes and knives and wowed him as models of economic usage of every part of the pig. In the early 1980s he was back in Berkeley and cooked a lunch where Alice Waters was in attendance. A couple of years earlier he had tried out for a job at her storied restaurant, Chez Panisse, and was told she didn't think he was ready. But now she recognized the depth of his talents and invited him to come on board. From 1982 to 1992, he was her head chef and co-authored her book, "Chez Panisse Cooking." "At Chez Panisse, I exercised the ideas I'd learned in Italy, the sensibility and tools for producer profile — 1960s Paul Bertolli goes to work in an Italian deli in the Bay Area at age 12. By the time he's 14, he is a union-card–carrying butcher. — 1960s–1970s Studies classical piano and composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the University of California, Berkeley; travels back and forth to Italy, work- ing as a waiter, in kitchens, and absorbing the food cul- ture; cooks at Fourth Street Grill, Mark Miller's landmark restaurant in Berkeley. — 1982 Joins Chez Panisse, where he works as head chef for the next decade, helping co- author Alice Waters' "Chez Panisse Cooking." — 1992 Leaves Chez Panisse and enrolls in graduate school; meets future Fra'Mani busi- ness partner, Tom Garrity. — 1993 Joins Oakland, Calif. restaurant, Oliveto. — 1999 Wins the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef: California. — 2003 Publishes "Cooking by Hand", a collection of essays and recipes. — 2003–2006 Studies ways to invigorate charcuterie market in U.S., traveling to small manufactur- ing plants in Italy and Iowa, and perfecting production methods. Garrity comes on board as an investment partner. — 2006 Launches Fra'Mani Handcrafted Food in Berkeley, applying old-world methods to the art of crafting salami, pancetta, sausage, and prosciutto. 84 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com HIGHLIGHTS