Cured Meats Category

This is a fatty Italian pork salami that's seasoned with peppercorns.

This is a spicy Lebanese beef sausage. Look for it in Middle Eastern markets.

This is made from a mixture of calves' feet or pig snouts, eggs, and other meats that's been cooked and then allowed to gel. There's no need to cook it further; the cold slices are usually served as appetizers.

This is a family of spicy, somewhat dry pork and/or beef sausages that are great for sandwiches. They don't need to be cooked. Varieties include landjaeger and thuringer.

This is a heavily smoked ham with a spicy, peppery rind. It's often used in Cajun dishes.

Germans like to spread this smoky "tea sausage" on crackers or bread at teatime.

These have chunks of meat suspended in them that form a mosaic pattern when sliced. Varieties include schinkenwurst, jagdwurst, tyroler, Ansbacher pressack, tongue sausage, and zungenwurst.

This is a mild summer sausage that's made of pork and sometimes beef.

Tocino is Spanish for bacon, but in the Philippines, it refers to cured pork that's been marinated in a sweet red sauce. Look for it in Asian markets.

Delis often stock loaves of pork, lamb, veal, or beef tongues that have been cooked, pressed, jellied, and/or smoked.

This exquisite French sausage is usually made with pork, smoked bacon, wine, and garlic. It's a great sausage for a cassoulet. Cook it before serving.

This is a pork and beef soft salami ring.

Different brands of turkey bacon have wildly different amounts of fat, but most have much less fat than ordinary bacon. The flavor suffers a bit, though.

Many meat analogs are disappointing, but some variations on vegetarian bacon are surprisingly tasty. See the recipes for Vegan Bacon, Tempeh Bacon, or Tofu Bacon posted on www.vegweb.com.

These small, squat hot dogs come in cans. They're often used to make hors d'oeuvres.

These are mildly seasoned German veal sausages, very light in color. Germans like to eat them with potato salad during Oktoberfest. Cook before eating.

This choice German ham is smoked over beechwood and juniper and has a salty, smoky flavor. It's usually cut into very thin slices and eaten raw.

This is liverwurst dotted with pistachios.

This is a lightly smoked, dry-cured British ham. It's saltier but milder in flavor than other European dry-cured hams.

This German blood sausage includes pieces of pickled tongue. It comes ready to eat, but it's often heated before serving.