The Salami Maker Who Fought the Law

Abstract

Since the early 20th century, the Buzzio family has been making and selling traditional Piedmontese charcuterie and fresh sausages out of an unassuming Manhattan storefront. Marc Buzzio, whose father Ugo founded the business, provides all manner of salamis to famous chefs and neighborhood regulars alike. Buzzio works in small batches, crafting his product out of heritage pork, and curing it in his low-tech drying room, the same way it has been done for centuries. But in the summer of 2002, disaster struck in the form of new USDA regulations for dry aged, ready-to-eat products. The regulations were written with industrial producers in mind, not mom-and-pop operations, and certainly not this beloved neighborhood store where dry-cured sausages have been made in the same careful way for nearly eighty years. This story chronicles the struggles of a small producer to adapt to regulations that are increasingly designed for mass-market food production.