There’s a wholesome earthiness about the New Year’s food traditions in virtually every culture. A particular personal favorite is lentils, of which there are many recipes The Selective Echo has tried. However, I am immediately drawn to a family recipe provided by Utah’s most famous salami and charcuterie master Cristiano Creminelli.

The lentil recipe with the Italian staple cotechino, which Creminelli has offered as part of this year’s holiday season, is fragrant, satisfying, and a perfect party side dish. The recipe, which can be found here, incorporates the cotechino sausage, which is simply a cooked form of salami, and, like all of Creminell products, is handmade.

Creminelli puts his own distinctive imprint upon the cotechino, which typically is stuffed into the deboned front leg of a pig. Creminelli’s cotechino, which has a distinctive porky flavor nuanced with garlic and cloves, is stuffed into a beef casing. It’s easy to use the cotechino in Creminell’s recipe. All one has to do is boil the sausage in its plastic pouch for 20 minutes. Afterward, remove the plastic, the string and casing; score and slice the sausage, and arrange it on the lentils.

Another great favorite this holiday season is his wild boar mortadella, which has a prominent silky texture and an incredibly smooth finish on taste. Of course, the mortadella sliced paper thin, makes for a perfect sandwich but it also is an ideal addition to an antipasto tray when it’s cubed.

Not a bad way to start the year.

Look no further than the impressively diverse chocolate collection at Tony Caputo’s Market and Deli for the definitive example of an Occupy Chocolate movement.

Here, words and phrases such as “fair trade,” “rainforest alliance,” “organic,” “certified,” and “single estate” lose their overblown and over-promoted promise of value. From tasting the bars of already well-known producers such as Amedei, Amano, and Pralus to the newest players such as Potomac Chocolate and The Chocolate Conspiracy, customers also get a transparent glimpse of what genuine ethical models of trade should really look like. These companies work with buyers who don’t force economically disadvantaged farmers to cut corners in their work – even in how they would ferment and dry the cacao beans.

For example, Alessio and Cecilia Tessieri, the siblings who started Amedei in 1990, pay farmers at least six times the prevailing market rates and make it a point to connect personally regularly with the growers. In the eyes of the connoisseur, chocolate making now appears less like an industry than as a laboratory where culinary risks, experimentation and hard work lead to a transcendental experience.

Through sample tastings, chocolate education classes, and their store purchases, customers begin to understand the need to preserve high-quality crops of cacao beans and to support farmers who should be rewarded for producing a crop that offers exceptional flavor profiles cultivated in the best sustainable agricultural environment possible.

For Ben Rasmussen, the epiphany changed his life. Two years ago, at Christmas, Rasmussen, who always had been content with a Three Musketeers bar to satisfy his chocolate craving, sampled chocolates that his brother purchased after he attended a class at Caputo’s. Rasmussen, a BYU-Idaho graduate who was living in Virginia and working as a computer systems administrator, was so impressed that he encouraged his brother to repeat the sample tastings for other holiday visitors.

‘I had a pretty terrible palate and I never considered myself a lover of dark chocolate,’ he recalls. ‘I certainly wasn’t a foodie in the traditional sense and I even warned my brother not to get his hopes up with me. However, after tasting the gateway drugs – a Valrhona Manjari, Amedei Chuao, Amano Ocumare, and Domori Java Blond – I fell in love immediately.’

By the Fourth of July in 2010, Rasmussen had tempered his first batch of chocolate with beans from the Ivory Coast and he was so hooked that he shuttered his sideline business as a wedding photographer and launched Potomac Chocolate. With a voracious appetite for continuous improvement, he quickly accelerated his learning curve, gaining the attention of the Biagio Fine Chocolate shop in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Potomac Chocolate debuted late last year at a chocolate symposium at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

‘Nobody knew we were in the room and the moderator milked the room for comments, which were quite positive,’ he says. ‘There was a woman sitting two rows in front of me who spat out the sample and she was mortified when we were introduced.’ Ironically, Rasmussen has yet to meet Matt Caputo in person.

This Christmas, Rasmussen’s Upala bar with nibs, made from beans in Costa Rica that have not been featured extensively in other bean-to-bar productions, is available at Caputo’s and Potomac Chocolate can be found in at least two dozen other shops including Calgary and London. The bar explodes with promise and it is hard to believe that someone within such a short timespan has been able to achieve such a remarkable product.

The roast is unquestionably rich and deep but Rasmussen shows a deft hand with bringing out lightened, smoothed tones of molasses, berries, and spice. It is a bold bar not necessarily the most complex or refined but it is a memorably satisfying example of chocolate’s elemental perfection.

Boldness is a common trait among many of the products found at Caputo’s. In Utah, The Chocolate Conspiracy is angling to promote chocolate’s full health benefits by offering raw chocolate bars, made from heirloom Nacional beans from Ecuador. A. J. Wentworth, whose culinary background is focused on raw, vegan, and integrative nutritional techniques, then processes the chocolate through 70 hours of grinding and sweetens it with raw, unfiltered honey from a local producer. Other ingredients might include Himalayan pink salt and raw vanilla bean.

Wentworth, who also has a patisserie background, has produced a line of bars that will surprise even detractors who have found other raw bars to be shallow and plastic in taste. His Goji Berry offering, in particular, is a first-rate infused bar that satisfies quite significantly with complex layers of texture and depth which normally would be apparent in bean-to-bar products with the sort of lighter roasts common in many Amano and Pralus chocolates. Part of his inspiration came from the challenges of making vegan chocolate desserts for customers and others, such as ‘my mother who always had been content with Hershey’s kisses,’ he explains.

Likewise, imaginative creations from other relative newcomers amplify the elemental flavors and healthful benefits of top-quality cacao beans. Missouri Chocolatier Alan ‘Patric’ McClure – whose seven years in business makes him a veteran relative to Rasmussen and Wentworth – achieves amazing results in bars such as his PBJ OMG (“peanut better and jelly” as part of the “oh my gosh” line). Using only five ingredients – roasted cacao beans, cocoa butter, cane sugar, sea salt, and peanut butter, McClure, whose other creations have won industry awards and accolades from observers such as Food & Wine Magazine, lets the fruit jelly notes come through the beans.

McClure pushes the boundaries in unprecedented ways, too, such as his collaboration with Kaldi’s Coffee Roasting Company. Earlier this month, Patric Chocolate released coffee-based Cappuccino and Mocha bars that use an espresso bean as the base ingredient. The taste surprises – in a pleasing way, too.

At Caputo’s, names like Amedei, Amano, Pralus and others continue to anchor one of the region’s most extensive retail offerings of fine chocolate. Amedei always flexes its culinary muscle in many enriching ways. Its Toscano Red bar packs a generous portion of dried fruits – cherries, strawberries and raspberries – into its 70 percent dark chocolate form.

The Amedei 9 bar, which now has earned two major awards from the Academy of Chocolate in London, is a 75 percent creation with beans coming from nine plantations. It runs the gamut in tasting – floral, light, and fruit-scented to rich, darker tones. The finish is so clean that one almost has to do a double-take to make sure that this bar actually contains 75 percent cocoa solids.

Amedei also has moved some of its chocolate creations that used to be available in the small five-gram sample squares into its traditional 50-gram (1.75 ounce) bars. Its Venezuela bar gives generous tasting notes of floral and citrus character along with hints of coffee, cream, and subtle fleeting bits of nutmeg, cinnamon, and other dark spices.

The artisan chocolate world has changed and expanded so much in less than a decade that a few roguish upstarts look upon Amedei as playing it too conservatively or cleanly but no one should ever underestimate this pioneer because they always prove their merit as independent producers who willingly take the risks big chocolate producers would never entertain.

Only Amedei would dare blend white chocolate with the strongly flavored pistachios unique to the tiny Bronte area in Sicily. The nuts, normally used in pastas, ice cream, and baklava, mesh so well with white chocolate that this Amedei creation is undeniably one of the best infused white chocolate bars ever tasted personally.

In many respects, the Utah-based Amano Artisan Chocolate enterprise has become almost as well known and respected in the global chocolate connoisseur community. Its Madagascar bar received the second highest ranked score of any bar tasted by expert connoisseurs who write reviews for the industry’s authoritative online information source Seventy%. It has earned scores of honors in less than five years.

Two Amano bars worth mentioning include Amano Cuyagua, which offers notes of rum, sassafras, coffee, and even earthy morels but has an intriguing finish on the palate that is like the end of a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.

Special note should be given to its Morobe bar, which indicates precisely the type of rehabilitated cacao production by which farmers in Papua New Guinea. The bar epitomizes what Martin Christy, the internationally respected chocolate reviewer for Seventy% in London, believes is at the core of artisanal producers who seek to bring back the most cherished varietals of cacao – most specifically, Trinitario in this case. He rhapsodizes about Art Pollard’s creation:

‘As you let it melt in your mouth you will have those sharp grapefruit and lime flavours lifting off the bar, hitting the side of your mouth. It’s almost like a grapefruit vinaigrette with the acidity and the sweetness combined. But beneath that there is an utterly splendid caramel experience that holds it all together and well after the final melt you should get leather and a slight dusting of tobacco.’

Finally, Pralus offerings, as usual, should be checked out by customers at Caputo’s, too. Chocolate maker Francois Pralus, who worked as a pastry chef in France before turning his attention to chocolate, has produced bars that rank clearly among Amedei’s best efforts, matching them in terms of immensely pleasing silky tastes and creamy smooth textures.

He is as adventuresome as his Italian counterparts, producing, for example, a Vanuatu bar that contains cacao sourced from Epi, a tiny island part of the nation – really, a South Pacific archipelago with considerable volcanic activity nearly equidistant from Australia, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea.

The taste is a fascinating mélange that belies the expectations one expects from the geographical origin of the bean. Fruity and zesty, the bar has fleeting notes of ginger, warm spices, and nuts that seem more appropriate for a late autumn feast.

Another worthwhile Pralus confection is the Barre Infernale that tips its culinary hand to the creator’s patisserie expertise. This is the perfect praline treat.

Quantity should never be the guide here. Most of these artisanal bars include 12 squares and just 2 or 3 at a time impart such incredible taste sensations that the satisfaction is so complete. Therefore, one would hesitate to risk sensory fatigue for fear of missing the complex notes these chocolate treasures offer. And, skip trying to pair them with wine. These confections seem to match beautifully with warmer liqueurs, rums, whiskeys, and scotch.

For more information about Caputo’s offerings of chocolates as well as classes, see here.

“It’s thankless work,” says Matt Caputo. “There are never-ending hurdles. We have to scramble every time the cooler breaks down and the repairs are not like any normal refrigeration work. Coils have to be replaced every 18 months and the cost goes up rapidly each time. After two separate nights when the cave was completely off, we had to push a thousand times harder around the clock to make sure that every setting for the cheeses was correct.”

With maintenance costs atop the initial setup that ran upwards of $65,000, the Caputo’s cheese cave, three and a half years running, readily classifies as a sinkhole for money. That is, if one examines the venture from a purely business accounting perspective.

However, Caputo’s core business model considers that authenticity cannot be mass-produced. Viewed as incidental to the longer project of building a food culture where the revival of traditional agricultural products and markets engages the interest of individual customers, the maintenance headaches and unexpected costs constitute a worthy investment.

“The learning curve has been incredibly steep but we’re gaining more confidence as we near plateaus for some of our best artisanal cheeses,” he says. Likewise, employee Antonia Horne has embraced her role, keeping a fantastically detailed notebook of the aging (affinage) activity in the cave that helps Caputo and others know just when a cheese is at its perfect state for sampling.

Of all the specialty foods carried at Caputo’s, cheese is the most complex. It is a “living product” that must be handled with exceptional care. Shipped or handled improperly, it easily can be destroyed. And, then, aging – which requires an environment of controlling temperature and humidity with the precision of a scientific lab setting – must allow the ecology of the correct molds to be manifested in bringing out the cheese’s full complement of terroir and tasting notes. In the cave, for example, a young Chaource which is slightly sour with a fruity flavor touched with a small acidic tone matures within three and a half weeks into a small smooth, creamy, mushroomy round.

One of the most promising successes has been the cheddar, covered with butter-soaked bandages and aged in house from fresh curd to finish ($19.95/pound). At 11 months, the cheese offers interplay of acid and sweet notes, along with mild to strong flavors suggesting asparagus and horseradish opens up a sense of terroir never possible in its mass produced counterpart.

Aged at least six months and preferably longer – up to 10 to 16 months – Grotte Caputo ($14.95/pound) mixes hints of sweetness and nuttiness with a sharp ambrosial profile in a cheese made from Holstein milk in Wisconsin. A remarkably versatile companion to most wines, the cheese epitomizes Caputo’s essential role in being a genuine intermediary when it comes to communicating the distinguished pedigree and place of cheese for the customer.

Furthermore, cheese buying at Caputo’s is a distinct customer-friendly process. First, customers get as much as they want or need from a particular cheese. In fact, because affinage is so vital to bringing out a cheese’s exceptional qualities, one is better off only buying enough for a specific use or occasion. Indeed, the cheese, left in one’s refrigerator at home surrounded by a common plastic wrap, loses a good deal of its vitality.

Some also might flinch at paying $20 or more per pound for some cheeses but once one realizes just how much taste and flavor can be obtained at $5, $8, or $10, the price-quality-value paradigm is readily evident. And, there are quite a few cheeses that are spectacular bargains in the $12-$15 per pound range. The point is that cheese aging not only guides artisan cheese producers in navigating the market but it also helps cheese consumers – literally on a person by person basis – to comprehend the often-invisible realities of artisan production.

It’s not primarily about short-term profitable margins. It’s about building a long-term trust for a complex product – for the artisanal producer as well as the customer who relies on Caputo and his colleagues to recommend the best product for his or her needs, desires, and expectations.

Without a doubt, the cave provides an excellent pretext for cultivating relations with local cheese producers. A solid example is Kings’ Peak, one of the cheeses from Snowy Mountain Sheep Creamery in Eden, Utah. The dairy is well known for it exceptional standards of cleanliness that minimize to the least extent any need for antibiotics. Appropriate for an authentic cheese-making farm, the milk designated for cheese production is fed directly into an enclosed system, further emphasizing the attention to scrupulous sanitary conditions.

A smear rind cheese, Kings’ Peak ($23.99/pound) is a half and half blend of milk from Lacaune sheep and Guernsey cows. Aged for three months, this cheese capitalizes upon all of the key strengths one would find in a traditional Fontina from the Valle d’Aosta region. It’s ideal in its whole pure form or as a great cheese melt.

Snowy Mountain Creamery’s location nearly replicates the unique Alpine climate and topographical conditions but the conditions nevertheless impart a Utah terroir to its cheese that rises well above the impression that it merely imitates its European counterpart.

Another Fontina ($17.99/pound) from the Italian Alpine producer Fromagerie La Haut Val d’Ayas is made from the milk of the region’s breeds of cows including red-brindle, black-brindle, chestnut. Intensely floral, the cheese’s sweetness matures even with a short aging time in the cave, along with its pungent aroma. Opened in 2002, the Italian cooperative works with 65 local farmers and uses more than 2 million liters of milk annually to produce some 18,000 pounds of cheese.

One of the most successful and popular cheeses coming out of the cave is Ossau-Iraty, which is usually aged for an additional one to six months in the cave after it has arrived. This cheese, produced by Onetik and made from sheep’s milk, has phenomenal nutty and caramelized notes that are beautifully expressed after aging. The name refers to two rivers in the French Basque region, which gives the spectacular terroir distinction to these cheeses, including a Tome de Vache Basque.

Onetik selections range in price from the high teens to $25.99 per pound but note that even small quantities of these intensely flavored cheeses go a long way.

Several Basque-origin cheeses have produced notable results from their time in the cave, even as they are temperamental. For those looking to sampling something different from the first-rate Taleggio offered in the store, the goat milk Pau Mathieu($26.99/pound) is a stunner. The oddly intoxicating funky aroma of this washed rind cheese gives way to a richly complex layered profile of sweetness and nutty tasting notes that is versatile at either end of the dinner course sequence.

After several months in the cave, the cheese’s creamy paste grows big in savory taste with a firmer texture. The goats, which feed on the Basque mountain region’s indigenous plants, are raised on the hillsides barely ten to fifteen minutes away from the Mediterranean coast.

One of the best bargains ($13.99/pound) from the cave is a Livradois Raclette that outdoes its lackluster counterparts with fertile, lively tastes not normally expected in this cold winter supper classic. Made from raw milk in Auvergne, this cheese has a sweet creamy texture and flavor that intensifies with nutty and earthy mushroom tones once it’s been aged. The Raclette already has been aged for two to three months once it arrives at the store but an additional month in the Caputo’s cheese cave lifts this cheese significantly from ordinary heights.

However, the cave is not the only focus of Caputo’s rapidly developing cheesemonger program. The staff continues to cultivate its offerings for cheeses that are shipped with extremely meticulous care and which can be offered directly from the case. But, again, the emphasis is on discovering artisanal cheeses that often pleasantly surprise customers who begin to compare those against the more familiar offerings.

A solid example comes in the Fleur du Maquis ($30/pound), a marvelous representation of the interplay of French terroir and Italian influences. The cheese, which takes its name from the thick bush cover that made it easy for thieves and robbers to hide, comes from ewe’s milk that is cured with rosemary, juniper, and fennel along with a subtly handled hint of tiny chiles.

This cheese stands nicely up to Spanish white wines, Rieslings, and a good range of light to medium red wines. Versatile in every respect, the cheese not only imparts a deeply satisfying spreadable creaminess but it also offers up crumbling bits that work well in many southern European dishes.

For more information, see here.

As spectacular as its sales figures and business success have been in its first 18 months of operations, the founders and employees at Salt Lake City’s Epic Brewing Company have demonstrated their deep appreciation for a far more significant lifelong value in dynamic entrepreneurship. In the unforgiving arena of business, entrepreneurship cannot be seen merely as a contact sport governed by rigid rules. Rather it is the gateway to building a product culture that champions collaboration and innovation not only in the making of high-quality craft beers but also in strengthening Utah’s steadily expanding awareness for superior locally-produced and expertly prepared foods.

Most recently, Kevin Crompton, Epic’s chief brewer, joined with Jeff Hancock, his counterpart at the DC Brau Brewing Company in Washington, D.C. to create ‘Fermentation without Representation,’ an Imperial Pumpkin Porter, a craft beer that includes more than 200 pounds of locally grown pumpkin in each batch along with a mix of cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and whole Madagascar vanilla beans. As noted by Mike Riedel, who writes the Utah Beer blog: ‘There are two places in the United States notoriously known for their lack of representation: Washington D.C., which has none — and Utah, whose minority drinkers are a nuisance more than constituents. It seems likely that factions from both places would find some common ground and rage against those that choose not to hear them. Leave it to the beer industry to rock the boat.’ Riedel adds that, while each brewer will follow the standard recipe, the respective versions will be distinctive in their own right, just as they should be. Both beers were released on Nov. 3 in each location.

As the end of 2011 nears, Dave Cole and Peter Erickson, co-founders of Epic who worked for many years as biologists before launching their dream venture in May of 2010, see a company that long ago outgrew the rosiest predictions of their original, meticulously crafted strategic business plan. Their original production targets this year were pegged at 700 barrels. Thanks first to an expansion last winter that effectively tripled its capacity and to further ongoing enhancements that have added huge fermentation tanks and barrels for aging (including whiskey and bourbon, white wine such as chardonnay, and red wine such as syrah and cabernet), Epic is now capable of producing between 6,000 and 8,000 barrels annually.

And, 2012 will see further growth, including an out-of-state brewing location that will aid in serving Epic’s growing market presence in states in the eastern half of the country. In other words, Epic’s production capacity at some point will top 15,000 barrels a year.

Its versatility in the short term verges on the unbelievable. There already are 28 varieties encompassing Epic’s Classic, Elevated, and Exponential product tiers. And, the brewery has nabbed 14 major industry awards in its 18-month existence, including two medals at last month’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver, where nearly 4,000 beers were entered into competition.

Epic’s Imperial IPA earned a bronze in one of the festival’s most competitive categories where 103 entries were posted. Its fabulously popular Brainless on Peaches, which Crompton describes as a Belgian Style beer that goes through a secondary fermentation on organic peach puree in French oak chardonnay barrels, earned a silver medal.

In January, Epic gained honors as a top three new brewer in a review by RateBeer.com, one of the industry’s foremost authoritative review groups. Epic’s beers were ranked against more than 130,000 offerings from 10,000-plus brewers in the world.

Epic beers now are found in 10 states, including Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia and North Carolina. And, Cole and Erickson have found key strategic and conducive allies in the always tricky minefield of distribution, such as Hunterdon Distributors in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. This company specializes in representing the new wave of craft beer producers who follow uncompromising standards of quality production ranging from the monitoring of fermentation to the geographically-specific origin of the malt and grains, the multitude of yeast strains, and the sourcing of first-rate ingredients and fruit juices for specialized brews.

The founders continue to wear their phenomenal success with remarkably understated poise as Utah’s first state brewery since the Prohibition Era to produce beer that is exclusively greater than 4.0 percent alcohol (by volume). And, much as when the Selective Echo took its first tour of Epic’s facilities at 825 South State Street, the group of employees (about 20) continues to wear the exciting pace of mushrooming expansion without wavering one bit in their focus on product quality.

Cole and Erickson are exemplars of the best team sport attributes of entrepreneurship. Consistent both in staying confident and affable, the two co-founders appropriately confer the right sense of autonomy in delegating the tasks and responsibilities that have made their coherent, compelling vision a vibrant reality in the marketplace. Experimentation always is encouraged and some of the most unconventional ideas turn out to be rousing successes.

Its Big Bad Baptist Imperial Stout, made with cocoa nibs and coffee, proved a bit overpowering in its first release but Crompton dialed the ingredients back in subsequent batches by about 20 percent and the beer now conveys all of the best elements of an imperial stout with just the right hints of dark chocolate and espresso. And like so many other Epic beers, this particular brew has inspired local food creations including a gelato made on the premises of Vinto’s casual Italian eatery in downtown Salt Lake City.

Epic’s place in the local food culture is being welcomed in many of the city’s best-known restaurants and taverns for locally made and sourced products. A prominent example is with Tony Caputo’s Market and Deli where several food classes now are focused on unique pairings of Epic’s brews with the handcrafted charcuterie made by Creminelli and others along with the many cheeses that are part of Caputo’s growing affinage program. A proposed joint venture in 2012 will include a local shop exclusively focused on pairing Epic brews with Caputo products.

Regardless of whether a beer falls in either as an Epic Classic, Elevated, or Exponential offering, the brewery always pushes the boundaries in even small unexpectedly delightful ways. A particular favorite is Hopulent IPA, which is now in its 30th release. A veritable orgy of hops, this beer still comes in at a healthy 8.2 percent alcohol content. However, it’s a marvel of layered complexity. The peaked hoppy aroma is complemented by a pleasantly surprising malty and smooth textured taste punctuated by the right nuances of grapefruit and pine that nicely separate out the bitterness from the sweet finish of the fruit.

All Epic beers are sold in 22-ounce bottles at the State Street store, in limited quantities at various Utah liquor stores, and at numerous local restaurants and bars. For more information, see here.

Likewise, emphasizing that not every locally made food product is necessarily worthy of gold star treatment, Caputo regularly introduces participants to the producers behind names such as Creminelli, Snowy Mountain Sheep Creamery, Slide Ridge Honey, Epic Brewing Company, and others whose foodstuffs have captivated specialty food stores in and out of the United States.

Of course, tasting and cooking classes at the downtown and 15th-and-15th locations of Tony Caputo’s Food Market and Deli regularly sell out because the overall program offers a refreshing cost-friendly path to connoisseurship without the intimidating or alienating effects of a staid or stodgy approach that otherwise would match exclusivity with an out-of-the-ballpark price. Along with the meticulous background research that goes into each class, Caputo focuses on the face-to-face interactions between producers and customers as leading to a more effective way of comprehending the true complexities and genuine goals of a food system that is not only known for being local but also for being sustainable and beneficial to the community.

The classes succeed because they serve a longer-term objective about building a resilient food culture in Utah that goes well beyond the obviously inherent retail advantages Caputo’s justifiably reaps from its education program. And, the classes continuously evolve to incorporate broader, more diverse, and more focused elements of tasting and cooking with the meats, cheeses, oils, vinegars, butters, chocolates, and salts so that increasing proportions of participants return for intermediate and advanced levels of experience. Francis Fecteau of Libation, Inc., offers supplemental wine education and, more recently, representatives of Epic Brewing Company have coordinated information about craft beer pairings with meats and cheeses.

Furthermore, the classes help establish an immensely useful baseline of trust where the personal interactions and connections between and among customers, producers, and retailers operate more effectively as a friendly, accessible expert system in lieu of the sterile, impersonal, and technically confusing realm of standard product certifications. Caputo and his staff understand that it’s not merely satisfactory to have the right attitudes and values to make customers want to learn more about these extraordinary food items. Instead, it is better to foster a mutually adaptive capacity on both sides of the transaction. That is, customers are inspired to try these products as well as broaden and diversify their repertoire as food consumers. Likewise, producers and retailers learn what drives the impetus for shared values and attitudes. They also learn what customers expect from these products, what they currently know (or don’t know) about how these products are made, and what they think about the products.

So much valuable information is gathered from classes that could never be generated from an advertising-driven promotion or marketing campaign that uses one-time surveys or focus groups to gather opinions and attitudes. The classes become the ideal vehicle for reaching as many demographic groups as possible that are taking a greater interest in the quality as well as responsible production methods for the food they eat.

Along with the live music Troy Petersen offers each Friday at the 15th and 15th location, the classes have been the perfect medium for reaching out to neighboring residents as well as students, faculty, and staff from the nearby campuses of The University of Utah and Westminster College. “Not only is it a great way for customers to go for the red pill and sample a goat’s milk or sheep’s milk cheese for the first time and pair it with a wine they might never have tried before,” Petersen explains, “but it also is a great excuse for neighbors to walk down to the store and get together.”

The classes not only serve the needs equally of the gourmet foodie and the thrifty consumer but they also orient the store’s employees at the front line to be effective guides for the customer’s specific needs. “Our customers deserve that we are honest and it makes no sense to try and do the hard sell of the most expensive products,” Caputo explains. For example, the classes are designed to help consumers navigate with an increasing sense of confidence the imposing selection of olive oils or vinegars available. Rightly so, Caputo and Petersen break the products into manageable categories ranging from least expensive to most expensive, paralleling the best ways to use them.

Caputo’s usually offers four classes per month (mainly Mondays at 7:15 p.m. at the downtown location and Tuesdays at 7:15 p.m. at 15th and 15th, with some exceptions). The cost per class is a highly reasonable $25 with a wine pairing available at an extra $15.

One class remains in September – a tasting session for olive oils and vinegars on Monday, Sept. 26, at the 15th and 15th store. Fall classes include introductory sessions for chocolate as well as cheese and wine. Others are focused on holiday themes including Italian cooking as well as a comprehensive VIP shopping and tasting tour of the store. Cooking classes, offered less frequently and which cost $20 more than the basic class rate, include a full meal. Private classes for groups also are available. For more information, see here.

‘There was never any downtime last year,’ says Robert “Sully” Sullivan, chef and co-owner of Utah Food Services, who is back for a fourth year with a full staff that is prepped to handle what is expected to another record crowd of visitors. Epicuriosity will open at 3 p.m. daily, an hour earlier than in previous years. Service will continue through most of the evening hours, at least through 9 p.m. if not later.

Part of the charm at the booth comes in Sully’s gregarious personality and infectiously good sense of humor. Talk about mastering the heat at the venue.

The entrée menu is the same including last year’s introduction of Foiled Again entrees featuring aluminum pockets of food cooked to order on site, which he had successfully tested at some local convention gatherings. One contains Utah trout, asparagus, sweet onion, fingerling potatoes, fresh herbs, lemon, white wine and capers while the other is a vegetarian-friendly assortment of rainbow carrots, yellow beets, asparagus, tree oyster and button mushrooms, fingerling potatoes, and fresh herbs.

Meanwhile, Tim Nelson, pastry chef, has come up with a pair of desserts that should fly out the booth as fast as the entrées – a nicely sized white chocolate mousse confection with pop rocks inside and a cool lemon creme tartlet embellished with blueberry that will be especially ideal for the hot festival days.

Last year, traffic at the booth was up 20 percent over the previous year, which also had beat the first year by nearly the same rate. Its success is easy to understand – great food smartly presented on small plates that are easy to balance even while standing among crowds.

The portions are just right and, for the price, a good deal for a festival venue. More importantly, the quality is top notch: perfectly done scallops, tenderloin at the right texture, and desserts that were balanced in sweetness as well as tartness. The Utah trout packet was a pleasant miniature feast alone.

The entrées will include:

* Seared and herb crusted beef tenderloin served with fingerling potatoes, rainbow carrot (glazed with raspberry and honey) and a Cabernet demi-glace

* Asia peppercorn, seared rare Ahi tuna served over peppery arugula with a wasabi aioli and fresh ginger

* Cyclades shrimp scampi: large prawns pan seared with shallots, tomatoes, herbs, capers, Kalamata olives and olive oil

* Jerked Chicken Caesar Salad, freshly tossed and dressed

* Scallops wrapped with prosciutto: served over creamed spinach and Swiss chard

Always good humored and incredibly self-effacing, Sully looks forward to giving his talented staff as much visibility as possible. As a mentor and teacher, this transplanted Vermont resident who co-owns the company, consistently ensures that Utah Food Services, which employs 300 who participate in a profit-sharing program, is a local model for rigorous standards of exceptional food quality, community outreach and workplace flexibility.

The company regularly wins honors for best and ideal workplace environment, including an Achievement of Catering Excellence (ACE) award at the 2011 Catersource Conference and Tradeshow in Las Vegas.

An additional feature is the opportunity to pair one of Uinta Brewing Company’s Crooked Line beers with the Epicuriosity entrees. Uinta, with a booth adjacent to Epicuriosity, also prepared a beer to commemorate the festival’s 35th anniversary (see below for video) – Arts Fest Amber Ale, which will be available only during the four-day event.

Uinta brewmasters will be on hand to guide tastings of the Crooked Line beers – Detour, Double India Pale Ale; Cockeyed Cooper, Bourbon Barrel Barley Wine Ale; Labyrinth, Black Ale, and Tilted Smile, Imperial Pilsner. The theme is essentially: ‘Pop the cork and create your own crooked experience.’

For more information about Uinta’s Crooked Line series, see here and for the festival, see here.

Uinta Arts Fest Amber Ale from Utah Arts Festival on Vimeo.

And, stay tuned to The Selective Echo for wall-to-wall coverage and previews of the festival which begins June 10 and will run daily June 18-26. The Selective Echo is pleased to welcome Max P. Dahl, an intern journalist from Utah State University, who will be assisting with festival coverage.

Uinta Arts Fest Amber Ale from Utah Arts Festival on Vimeo.

Both men have brought their unique gifts stateside and have attracted widespread attention. Their products are the exemplars of the ‘good, clean and fair’ standards of the slow food movement that began in their homeland. At Tony Caputo’s Market and Deli in Salt Lake City, Olli and Creminelli products headline a selection of meats that has broadened significantly in recent years with superbly crafted items, regardless of their origin of production, that embody distinctive flavors resulting from traditional and natural processing methods handed down over successive generations.

As a result of an incidental discovery on Facebook, at least a half-dozen products from the Olli Salumeria, based in Manakin-Sabot, Virginia, can now be found at Caputo’s store. “I knew right away this would be a perfect complement to our offerings,” Matt Caputo explains, adding that Olli’s presence along with Creminelli’s strengthens the unique quality-driven values of historic southern European food traditions.

And, as with Creminelli, Colmignoli has vigorous, uncompromising standards. The Berkshire and Mangalitsa pigs come from a small number of family farms in Virginia, Michigan, Iowa, South Carolina, Quebec, and New Jersey where no hormones, antibiotics, or growth stimulants are used. Furthermore, farmers take between two and three times as long to allow the pigs to get to their slaughtering weight, the animals’ diet is all-vegetarian feed, and the pigs live in immaculate, humane conditions free of crates and pens. Many people, of course, know Berkshire pigs that can produce gorgeously marbled, cured prosciutto hams and incredible salami. Mangalitsa pigs that remain quite rare in the U.S., unlike Hungary which breeds more than 60,000 annually, are the hairy fleece descendants of wild boars. They are especially prized for their lard but also are capable of producing protein-rich, intensely fresh flavors in smoked hams and sausage.

Just one sampling of Olli’s pancetta, speck, lardo or coppa immediately transports one momentarily to Europe. In late 2007, just as Creminelli was checking numerous times each day on the 160 pounds of extraordinary salami that were (at that time) being cured in the basement of the Caputo’s store, Colmignoli had confided to Chip Vosmik, his friend and eventual business partner, his dream of making salumi in the U.S. as good as what his family back home had produced in a business spanning four generations. Colmignoli, who had recently relocated with his wife and two children, worked extensively in London as a photographer.

With Vosmik’s gift of three Berkshire hams from Emile De Felice’s Caw Caw Creek Farm in South Carolina, Colmignoli spent the next 14 months curing the hams for prosciutto and the results were conclusive. The curing and drying rooms are from Frigomeccanica and the grinder, mixer and stuffer are from Risco. Colmignoli’s meticulousness is evident in the appearance of his meat, which is photo-perfect and would require no retouching whatsoever by a food photographer. Olli’s salumeria removes the nerves and tendons from the meat which otherwise would infiltrate its silky, buttery texture and the whole muscle meats are trimmed and rubbed with spices by hand to keep their natural appearance intact.

However, it’s the taste that amazes the palate. Olli’s speck pays exceptional tribute to its revered counterpart in Alto Adige and for the consortium of producers of the famous Speck ham — Consorzio dei produttori speck dell’Alto Adige (also carried at Caputo’s). It is as deftly handled as the 1,500-year-old tradition in the Sudtirol region of Italy where speck is smoked slowly and intermittently for two or three hours a day, a process which takes many months and disciplined patience.

Olli’s pancetta, made in a rustic flat style that is quite rare in the U.S. as opposed to the rolled version, is exquisite for how it melts in the mouth and the clean taste finish free of excess saltiness or acidity. The coppa, like Creminelli’s, pays deep culinary respect to the original from Piacenza, near Rome. The guanciale and lardo products are as mouth-watering in appearance as in taste.

Also, concerns about lardo’s nutritional and health impact are justifiably minimized. Research has shown that lardo has between one-third and two-fifths of the saturated fat in butter, has roughly one-fourth of the ‘bad’ low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in butter, and is super-rich in protein (more than twice that of butter). Furthermore, its taste is heaven on home-baked crusty bread with fresh homegrown radishes or spring onions. There also is a lardo made particularly for cooking purposes. This is heirloom preparation at its finest.

It’s been nearly four years now that Creminelli’s products were introduced to Salt Lake City customers but even as his enterprise and reputation have grown, Creminelli stays true to the standards of his family’s legendary Salumificio Vigliano in the Piedmont town of Biella. This is maintained at every level of production even down to the herbs, truffles, and other ingredients that come from authentic, ideally sustainable, agriculturally responsible sources. Vegetable extracts, not artificial nitrates, are used to cultivate the flavors and highly appealing appearance of his cured products. His handcrafted artisan salamis incorporate natural beef casings and his most recent additions of Milano and Calabrese salamis are cured in collagen casings from organic material that has been reformed for size and shape consistency.

The significance of an American-based salumificio of authentic standards cannot be overlooked. For the longest time, only those Italian meat products, which had been cured for 400 days or more, could be imported into the United States. With prosciutto, the issue with quality really does not trigger any consequences. However, salami would, as Caputo has previously explained, become dust in that same time.

And, it didn’t take long for the food world to acknowledge the significance of what Creminelli had accomplished. Within one year of beginning U.S. operations, his Tartufo Handcrafted Italian Salami with Black Truffle won the Sofi Silver Finalist Award for Outstanding New Product of 2008. In 2010, his wild boar salami was a finalist for outstanding meat product as named by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. Food writers in national media including the Wine Spectator, the San Francisco Chronicle and Tasting Table have consistently cited its distinctive, strong flavor profile.

In addition to the higher-priced tasting salamis that have catapulted his visibility, Creminelli recently introduced a diverse line of salami and smoked meat products ranging in price from $13.99 to $25.99 a pound that are versatile for use in sandwiches, antipasti, and culinary preparation. These include salamis such as finocchiona, soppressa, Milano, Felino, Varzi and Calabrese as well as mortadella, prosciutto crudo, coppa, mocetta, and pancetta.

The Varzi salami, while its origin is in the same Lombardy region where the Milano salami hails from, has a coarser grind and contains subtle essences of clove and nutmeg. Coming from a beef eye of round that has been massaged and rubbed with spices and marinade, Creminelli’s mocetta is the best substitute I have ever come across for beef carpaccio. The recipe comes from the Valle d’Aosta region along the French-Italian border.

His mortadella is the lightest, most fragrant version I have recently encountered as well. Obviously coming from the Italian region of Bologna, mortadella arises from a partially emulsified blend of lean and fatty pork and spices that is then tied in a hand casing. For the record, pistachios are not included in this artisan production, staying true to its roots.

No doubt, hams occupy an equally significant place in Caputo’s meat offerings. Pata Negra — the Jamòn Iberico de Bellota – comes from the Iberian pig, a free-range animal whose diet is primarily acorns. The Pata Negra ham has a long, distinguished history in culinary science, highly prized by Spanish explorers.

Customers also have the opportunity to sample and purchase the two most storied classes of prosciutto in Italy – those coming from Parma and San Daniele. The varieties also reflect the time hams have been aged – at least 12 months and up to 24 months.

The origin of prosciutto is ancient – going back well more than 2,200 years. The word is derived from the Latin perexuctus, which translates literally to ‘deprived of all liquid.’ Parma hams are typically made from nine-month-old-pigs weighing at least 325 pounds that are bred in 11 northern and central Italian regions.

The gran reserva hams – typically the most expensive– come from pigs that feed on chestnut orchards. Meanwhile, prosciutto di San Daniele is cured in the northeastern region of Friuli Venezia-Giulia and is prized for its pink meat; its creamy, smooth texture, and salty and sweet flavors. And, like Parma hams, they are cured with the application of salt, exposure to sunlight, and aging. Perhaps what distinguishes the San Daniele variety from other types of prosciutto is that it is cured with the bottom part of the leg bone in, a feature that makes for a photogenic rustic-looking ham.

While prosciutto is popular in sandwiches and in recipes, the best way to eat the higher-priced varieties of these hams is with a simple accompaniment of salad greens, cheeses, or fruit.

Others include La Quercia Organic Berkshire, a product from Iowa, which is a near dead-ringer for those Spanish Iberico hams. Meanwhile Serrano hams – of which a small variety is offered at Caputo’s — have lower moisture content in the end product, giving them a firmer texture and a more intense flavor. Unlike the black-hoofed pigs that give the Pata Negra hams, Serranos come from white pigs and are aged 12 months.

Customers also should not hesitate to sample the offerings from Dehesa Cordobesa in Spain, which makes purebred Ibérico meats from the same pigs that would be used to produce Pata Negra but are raised by a cooperative of farmers. The distinction is significant because while European Union and Spanish law only requires that only 50 percent to 75 percent of the pig must be Ibérico bred in order to use Ibérico in the name, Dehesa Cordobesa mandates that all of its meat products use all Ibérico pigs. The cooperative maintains a huge acorn oak tree forest in the Pedroches Valley in Cordoba.

The pigs feed on cereal grains in the summer and the intensely sweet Holm Oak acorns during the fall and winter. This whole cycle of natural feeding for the free-roaming pigs means the meat achieves a wonderful marbling and exceptional taste that comes through in the various pork and pork tenderloin products.

For the customer, this means the experience of eating Ibérico pork products can be had at prices 40 percent to 60 percent lower than the Pata Negra ham and, again, a little bit can go a long way.

What, however, will go a long way is the intensely satisfying taste of all of these meat products and a heart-warming respect for a food tradition that is enjoying a great renaissance in the 21st century.

Dornbush was a Dutch Jewish immigrant who, like his ancestors over the last several thousands of years, transported the foods and recipes – corned beef, pastrami, and matzo ball soup, to name just a few items – from one culture to another. And, as David Sax wrote in his marvelous book about the significance of saving the delicatessen, more Jewish customers went through the doors of a typical New York delicatessen in one week than the entire Jewish population of Utah.

Yet, while Dornbush long ago disappeared from the city’s downtown food scene, Harmsen’s fascination with the deli’s sandwiches, matzo ball soup, knishes, and beet/potato salad has never dimmed. Remembering how he carefully budgeted out his food expenses as a college student, Harmsen says, “I made it a point to eat there at least once every two weeks.”

Later, with a successful career running a heavy industrial engineering and construction firm firmly in place, Harmsen traveled extensively across the country and throughout the world, making delicatessens his de facto choice for meals. With a fervor that matches Sax’s passion about the grandness of the delicatessen as a culinary institution, he was forever inspired by New York City’s Katz (which Sax has described as the quintessential deli), Langer’s in Los Angeles (known especially for its pastrami), and the phenomenal Zingerman’s of Ann Arbor.

Shortly after he retired in 2008, Harmsen, whose personal energy level would challenge that of any college student today, resumed his role as a student – taking meticulous notes, conducting extensive research, getting hands-on training, and recruiting Kathie Chadbourne, one of Salt Lake City’s best-known personalities in the food scene, to guide the process that eventually would lead to opening a deli. Chadbourne, in fact, eagerly plunged into the process, which included an internship at Zingerman’s as well as a quick tour of the Big Apple’s best-known delis.

Today, at the 9th South Delicatessen – in the heart of the 9th and 9th neighborhood – Harmsen, with Chadbourne handling general manager duties, has recreated a culinary experience that reinforces the historically significant cultural linkage of the Jewish deli to the Ashkenazi traditions which Sax has emphasized as essential to saving the deli experience.

The clean, new look of a refurbished home, in fact, amplifies the inviting warmth of the foods – kugel, knishes, latkes, beet/potato salad, matzo ball soup, cookies, and many other dishes of an Eastern and Cental European tradition that Harmsen and his staff have recreated with deep admiration. All of his meats – the pastrami (which comes from the same custom source Langer’s uses), corned beef, turkey, and beef – are steamed and roasted in house.

Like a growing number of other conscientious restaurant and food shop owners in the city, Harmsen has brought his own brand of home-grown integrity to a menu with a remarkable sense of cultural assimilation. He speaks with a profound appreciation of the Ashkenazi culinary world and the communities of Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, Romania, and other parts of Europe whose foods and recipes have been a part of the American food quilt since at least the 1880s.

Likewise, Chadbourne has hit on an equally significant point. After a whirlwind tour of New York City delis, she chronicled her thoughts in an essay:

‘I feel the sense of neighborhood in all these lovely delis, people know each other. I’ve been eating traditionally all day. Even as a stranger, I felt included. Amazing. The commonality was as linked a Creminelli sausage coming out of the case at Caputo’s. Fresh knish from Stages to Katz. The corned beef at Carnegie was salty to perfection, peppery and the mustard was so seedy and spiced I had to keep licking my lips. I wondered if that coriander seed on my tongue was from the mustard or the meat? For a brief moment I thought about salami and eggs, pancake style! I couldn’t believe my eyes, I was standing in line at the doorway to enter Katz! “Turn your ticket in when you leave.”’

For Harmsen, the pure joys of deli eating are always informal and genuine. The first knish and pastrami sandwich I had at the 9th South Delicatessen immediately took me back to an old-fashioned Jewish deli in Toledo, Ohio I would stop by occasionally on my way home from McKinley School. This was in the 1970s. It’s true. You never forget the aroma.

However, rather than pocket the tips, the employees – including many who are either fresh out of high school or in college – decided that the funds would be better spent on furthering their experiences and education about food, its quality, and its sustainability. And, as a way of building employee morale and bringing employees still deeper into the conversation about what really good food means, the group decided to use the tips for a monthly employee dinner at locally owned restaurants that have introduced Salt Lake City diners to innovative culinary experiences.

“It’s been a great first-hand way for employees to see enthusiasm outside of the store for the same types of products we sell,” Petersen explains. “And, it’s a really nice reward especially for a lot of our young employees who otherwise might not have the opportunity or the money to eat at one of these amazing restaurants.”

Their first dinner last December was at The Copper Onion. Just recently, the crew dined at Forage, frequently cited as of the nation’s best restaurants. And, other dining heavyweights such as Takashi and Pago are on the list.

Likewise, at the main Caputo’s store in downtown SLC, employees are just as motivated to be a part of the conversation about food, eager to share with customers what they have learned about the first-class product lines of meats, chocolates, cheeses, oils, honey, pasta, and vinegars the store offers. In acknowledging the lessons of his father Tony who always rises to his role as a personal ambassador to customers, Matt says he has learned to appreciate the importance of treating employees by understanding how their lives matter particularly outside of the workplace.

“We value food that is authentic and that value is just as important for us in making a cohesive group,” Matt explains. “And we try to make the learning about our products as unforced and as unstressed as possible. A lot of our employees begin to see it as a sign of status. It’s cool to be a food person.”

While Caputo’s has earned awards for being an outstanding specialty food retailer, its commitment to employee excellence proves essential for sustaining that reputation. It reflects what Harvard’s Rosabeth Moss Kanter sees in organizations that are ‘supercorps.’ That is, companies are innovative, profitable, and responsible.

Social gatherings, such as casual group dinners (also a regular feature for downtown Caputo’s employees), not only reinforce the core values of Caputo’s reputation as a food retailer but also unlock the creative potential for employees who may or may not opt for a career in the food industry.

Petersen, like the younger Caputo, grew up with the family business, understanding that respect, product quality, and customer focus were not just decorative symbols of business but tangible values representing a lot of hard work, constant dedication, and faith in the skills and capabilities of good employees. As he said in an earlier interview: “Growing up with them, I learned things 10 times faster than what was going on in school. It was easy to see the passion that went into the business.”

Falling in love with the product was easy for Petersen and, for a while, he wondered if he would ever have the opportunity to open his own store. Petersen went on to work with Creminelli Fine Meats and Sausage (whose products are carried at Caputo’s) guiding stores on how to display, discuss, and sell charcuterie products. Yet, when the space at 15th and 15th became available, Petersen, now 33, did not hesitate at the opportunity to become a partner and investor.

Meanwhile, Nick Frappier, 22, took a different path. After ‘overstaying’ an high school internship at a local architectural firm (actually 18 months), the young college student took over a Caputo’s job from a young woman he was dating who had just quit. Frappier, who graduated in 2010 with a fine arts degree in painting from the University of Utah, did not think he would have a stake in the specialty food industry, especially as he was spending up to six hours each day on his art. However, like Petersen, he fell in love with the product and quickly became voracious about learning every intricate bit about the store’s food offerings.

By 2009, Frappier, who still has age-deceiving boyish looks with his curly hair, was handling the incredibly diverse chocolate offerings and dispensing the definitively accurate scoop on products to customers. “More than occasionally, there would be an older customer who seemed a little too eager trying to trip up this young kid on the chocolate counter with a question or fact,” Caputo says.

Frappier has moved on, managing sales and distribution for fine food products and reaching out to local and regional grocery stores and restaurants that share the same passion for food he came to respect. And, while he no longer has the opportunity to paint six hours a day, he says the experience in the food industry has informed and shaped his philosophy about creativity, appreciation, and the simplicity of artistic beauty.

It’s plainly easy to see why Caputo’s has emerged from the recession stronger and even more committed to a highly innovative perspective that invites more people to the conversation about food and its community impact. It’s worth quoting Kanter: “Challenging times divide winners from losers. Winners survive because they never forget the important enduring truth: High quality products and services are created by engaged employees who know and care about customers.”

There is no doubt about this at Caputo’s.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Allred