"Experiment" #2 - Salami Battle

This post marks the last of the Boccalone/Russian store series, ie, I will lay off the cured meats for a while and most likely move on to cheesier pastures.

And now, without further ado, I bring you "experiment" #2, salami.

Hyped, Branded, Expensive Entity A: Salame Peppato from Boccalone, in the Ferry Building. Here's the Boccalone Ferry Building page, for context.

vs.

Obscure, Possibly Generic, Possibly Coming from Some Poorly-Lit Ethnic Market, Cheap Entity B: "Bear" Salami from New World Market, a Russian store in the Outer Richmond neighborhood

Picking the salamis at both venues was difficult because I wanted to reduce the number of variables as much possible. Boccalone has three different flavors of salami, two of which are stuffed with fennel. I chose the Orange & Wild Fennel and Pepato (peppery) varieties.

At the Russian store, I was faced with a glass counter brimming with as much of a variety in salami shape, size, and color as one might expect at a Castro bath house. Paralyzed by too many choices, I asked the swarthy redhead behind the counter what their two tastiest salamis were, and she offered me the "Bear" and the "German."

The German and the Bear (not made from bear, of course, but named "Bear" like pretty much every other Russian foodstuff) pretty much looked and tasted identical, except that the German was a little more piquant.

Here are pictures of the salamis. I only show 2 and not all 4 because the Boccalone ones looked almost identical to one another and had the same price. Same goes for the Russian ones. Note the price difference. Do not note that my photoshop skills have not improved one bit.

Fancy Salami	Cheap Salami
$26/lb	$10.99/lb

As you can see, the fancy salami costs about 2.5 times more than the cheap kind. As before, the fancy salami is most certainly prettier. Actually, because of the huge disparity in the attractiveness of the meats, I decided to do the taste tests blind. I also decided to break up this taste tests into two sub-tests. First, people would taste the Fennel and the Bear. Then they would taste the Pepato and the German. These matches were made to keep the taste profiles as similar as possible to one another.

PROCEDURE
Ask subjects to close their eyes and trust you a whole lot. Place little pieces of meat in their mouths. Do this for first set of salamis. Ask for feedback. Repeat for second set. Mix up the order to keep precious pseudo-scientific integrity intact.

RESULTS
For the first trial (Fennel vs. Bear), 5 people preferred Fennel. and 6 preferred Bear.
For the second trial (Pepato vs. German), 7 people preferred Pepato. 4 preferred German.

Laughable statistical analysis reveals NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE between Fennel and Bear. More laughable statistical analysis revealed a POSSIBLE DIFFERENCE (ie, at P<0.5, for the mathematically inclined) between Pepato and German.

CONCLUSION:
It seems like the Orange & Fennel salami isn't worth the price. I think the Pepato is a tough call, given the results, and this matter might warrant more research. Consensus among the tasters seemed to be that the Pepato would be better on a cracker, or "with fancy mustard," as one of my more epicurean tasters suggested, whereas the cheaper salami would be better on a sandwich.

My personal take on the Pepato salami is that, despite the slightly superior taste, it's definitely not worth the price. I might be biased by what I consider to be a gross mismanagement of expectations from Boccalone. They describe the Pepato as follows:

"This medium-grind salame is seasoned with three specialty varieties of black pepper. Each type of pepper adds its own flavor characteristic, the combination of which sets this peppered salame apart from all the rest."

I don't know. To me, it tasted peppery. No delicately interwoven tantalizing piquant flavor ribbons swirling suggestively on my tongue or whatever. But maybe that's just me.

Before I leave Boccalone and move on to other over-hyped San Francisco institutions, a word or two in its favor. Boccalone makes available to the public several cured meats that I would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. These include the Nduja (a spreadable salami) and, my personal favorite, Porchetta di Testa, the moist, savory, extremely flavorful result of applying the porchetta recipe to a pig's head. See the video below for more info and some particularly tender moments, such as the shaving of the piggy and the blowtorching of its little ears.