Product Review: Boar's Head Italian Dry Salami

I wasn't aware of the practice of eating salamis with cheese until an undergraduate in my lab, named Daniel [1], brought some to a lab meeting with several cheeses. (This is when I learned that the time I ate Brie [2] I went about it completely the wrong way—we dipped grapes in the soft part of the cheese and avoided the rind altogether.) Some salamis have a Penicillium mold inoculated onto the casing, but there was no evidence of such on this one. It is called an 'Italian salami' to indicate that it was prepared using traditional methods [3] and to distinguish it from mass-produced salamis.

My verdict: The only other item I've had from Boar's Head was a smoked ButterKäse. I wasn't impressed with that cheese [4], so I was a little leery of their salami. But it was the cheapest salami available (I've seen really expensive ones with truffle shavings in them), so I went for it. Leann and I ate it with McCadam Horseradish Cheddar Cheese.[5] Despite my hesitation, this salami was quite good and paired nicely with the cheese and cherry tomatoes from our garden.[6]

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Notes:

[1] He's from Wisconsin, so he should know the proper companion foods for cheese.

[2] See my (spurious) review here.

[3] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami.

[4] You can read my review of that cheese here.

[5] You can read my review of that cheese here.

[6] Read more about our garden here.