Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/838473
Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 5341 producer profile curing, fermenting, cooking over a wood fire," he says. "I met with local foragers for protein, vegetables, and fruit, and started a curing cel- lar under the house, making prosciutto." Some 4,000 menus later, he was burned out. "It was an odd time of my life, and I decided to rest and figure things out," he says. While he still loved playing piano, he pursued a passion for 4th century his- tory by enrolling in graduate school at the University of Toronto, where he boned up on Latin and read primary medieval sources. Through academia, he met his Fra'Mani business partner, Tom Garrity, a classics scholar who later became a lawyer and worked in finance. "If there's something to be said that no one else should hear, we talk to each other in Latin," Bertolli says, laughing. Concluding he didn't have grand aspirations to be an academic after all, Bertolli once again returned to Northern California. In 1993, he joined the restaurant Oliveto, in Oakland. Before the British chef Fergus Henderson gained fame for writing about his nose-to-tail cooking at St. John in London, Bertolli was celebrated for mak- ing wildly successful whole hog dinners at Oliveto, featuring everything from head cheese to pickled pork trotters, pancetta, and salami. Customers were eager to buy his meats to enjoy at home. The time wasn't yet ripe. During his decade or so at Oliveto, Bertolli won a James Beard Foundation award as the best chef in California. "Cooking by Hand," a 2003 collection of his essays and recipes, is considered by many chefs and food writers to be an essential culinary memoir to have on the shelf. "By 2003, 2004, I felt too old to run a restaurant. I had kids [now 17 and 11] and wanted to be home at night," he says. From traveling around the U.S. and examining the charcuterie in the marketplace, he saw a void—and a way to invigorate the category. Launching a Specialty Food Business Observing a strong development of artisan cheese, olives, and olive oil, Bertolli thought cured meat could go in the same direction. He studied it from a business standpoint, rather than a romantic one, and spent more time in Italy at small manufacturing plants, as well as in Iowa to see how the pro- cess would translate under USDA regula- tions. He cured salumi under his house in Berkeley, took it to focus groups and to buy- ers, most of whom said they wanted it. His 86 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com