Charcuterie (from either the French chair cuite, cooked meat, or the French cuiseur de chair, cooker of meat) is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products such as sausage and confit primarily from pork. The practice goes back to ancient times and can involve the chemical preservation of meats; it is also a means of using up various meat scraps. Hams, for instance, whether smoked, air-cured, salted, or treated by chemical means, are examples of charcuterie. Freshly cooked pork sausages. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Two halves of a pig being delivered Pork is the meat taken from pigs. ... Template:Other uses Ham with cloves Technically, ham is the thigh and buttock of any animal that is slaughtered for meat, but the term is usually restricted to a cut of pork, the haunch of a pig or boar. ...

The French word for a person who prepares charcuterie is charcutier, and that is generally translated into English as "pork butcher." This has led to the mistaken belief that charcuterie can only involve pork. The Food Lover's Companion, however, says that "it refers to the products, particularly (but not limited to) pork specialties such as pâtés, rillettes, galantines, crépinettes, etc., which are made and sold in a delicatessen-style shop, also called a charcuterie." And the 1961 edition of Larousse Gastronomique defines it as: "The art of preparing various meats, in particular pork, in order to present them in the most diverse ways." A pâté (also spelled paté) is a spreadable paste, usually made from meat although vegetarian variants exist, and often served with toast as a starter. ... A galantine is a French dish of boned, stuffed meat, most commonly poultry, or fish that is poached and served cold coated with aspic. ... Larousse Gastronomique is the most respected of all the food encyclopedias, produced by the French publishing company founded by Pierre Larousse (1817-1875). ...

According to the charcuterie article in the French Wikipedia, the charcutiers ("chair cuitiers") of Paris became distinct from butchers in 1475, with the latter retaining the right to sell fresh meat. Butcher shop in Valencia A butcher is someone who prepares various meats and other related goods for sale. ...

The word can also refer to a delicatessen, a meat shop that specializes in primarily pork products, or that part of a supermarket that specializes in meat products such as hams and sausages. The word delicatessen designates a kind of food store. ... Some of the many varieties of Sausages A sausage consists of ground meat and other animal parts, herbs and spices, and possibly other ingredients, generally packed in a casing (traditionally the intestines of the animal), and preserved in some way. ...

See also

• Cold cut