The Cure | 9 April 2011

On the continent, the creators of cured meats can draw on a tradition imbued in the genes (in the case of Parma ham, for example) since the time of Hannibal. Can a much newer generation of British charcutiers possibly hope to compete, boosted by the surge of interest in hand-made food with clear, local provenance and with a potent mix of bloody-minded determination and passion?

Of course, there has long been a tradition of British hams — think Cumbrian or Carmarthen — but somehow they’ve never quite enjoyed the recognition and kudos of their European counterparts. But now at last we’re seeing British coppa (air-dried pork collar) and culatello (taken, as Antonio Carluccio once put it, from the plumpest part of the arse) jostling for position.

Newest on the scene is Tim Matthews, who was given a home smoker by his wife several years back and got utterly hooked. Formerly in property, his new-found passion for smoking coincided neatly with the recession. Initially, he found himself smoking more and more salmon for friends.

‘Quite soon I was doing up to 30 kilos a week, and realised this was more than fun, the beginning of something new. I love steak, so my first challenge was a beef carpaccio.’ His sublime beef fillet (made from East Anglican Aberdeen Angus or Hereford beef, hung for 28 days, dry cured for five days and smoked gently for three days in maple wood) immediately won Gold at the Great Taste Awards, even though the company is barely a year old. What’s more, it’s still run from Matthews’s home kitchen.

Near neighbours Ian and Sue Whitehead at Suffolk Salami started out as traditional pig breeders of Duroc and white Landrace and had long wanted to diversify into salami, but didn’t know where to start.