Olympia Provisions ─ Cured Meats and Tales from an American Charcuterie

A classic yet irreverent cookbook-slash-scrapbook featuring techniques, recipes, and essays about the history and personalities behind Portland's top-notch meat company and its American charcuterie.
Olympia Provisions is one of the driving forces behind the rise of Portland's food scene, and has been garnering praise--and patrons--from across the country. What began as Portland's first USDA-certified salumeria has grown into a mini-empire, encompassing two restaurants and a robustly expanding mail order business. In Olympia Provisions, the owners dive deep into their proudly American charcuterie, offering step-by-step recipes for confits, pates, sausages, salumi, frankfurters, and more. The book also goes beyond recipes for cured meat, featuring an unexpected but inspiring story of the authors' travels in the Alps (and their discovery of that region's unique charcuterie), essays about the perfect wine lunch, and non-charcuterie recipes from Olympia Provisions' two restaurants.

ELIAS CAIRO is the owner and salumist at Olympia Provisions. Born in Salt Lake City to a Greek family who loved to butcher lamb and goats utilizing Old World preparations and technique, Cairo started cooking at a young age in his father's restaurants and at the age of twenty began a European apprenticeship in Switzerland. Over the next four years he was taught classic butchery and charcuterie by renowned chef Annegret Schlumpf. In 2009, Cairo started Olympia Provisions, Oregon's first USDA certified meat-curing facility. MEREDITH ERICKSON is co-author of the James Beard nominated book The Art of Living According to Joe Beef (2011), as well asLe Pigeon(2013). Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Elle, enRoute, Monocle, Flare, and Lucky Peach, among other publications.