Five of a kind: Salumi

Fuet

This is a delicious sausage. Dense, porky and slightly sweet, it is a classic Catalan snack. The outside is coated in a fine layer of cultivated penicillium mould, much like camembert cheese, that imbues it with a delicate aroma of mushroom. This Australian-made fuet is as good as many you would get in Spain. Made by a Catalan emigre in Sydney, its interior is studded with fennel seeds that create a beautiful meaty and spicy bouquet. Slice into thin slices and enjoy with bread and olives, a Catalan beer, aromatic red wine or Australian vermouth.
La Boqueria Fuet, $55.95 a kilogram. Stockists include: Brunswick Street Alimentari, Fitzroy; Skinner & Hackett, Carlton North; the Rusty Fox, Kensington; Stocked Food Store, Hawksburn Village.

Ventricina

Many consider Portuguese-born sausage maker Jose Coutinho to be among the best in Australia. He learnt his trade from his Italian-born former boss and his father's family in Portugal. One of his best is ventricina, made from the belly of a female pig. The meat is minced coarse and mixed with spices and a paste of cooked red peppers then matured for three months. It is best sliced finely to reveal the pink-and-white pattern of the interior. Use on an antipasto platter and serve with a young sangiovese or a red wine.
San Jose Ventricina, $63.95 a kilogram. Stockists include: Rathdowne Village Deli, Carlton North; Deli Provata - Urban Larder & Cafe, Ascot Vale; Felice's Place Gourmet Butchery, Elwood; Thomas Dux, Armadale; McCoppins, Hawthorn.

Saucisson Sec

Jean-Marc Amar grew up in Languedoc in the south-east of France. He remembers the wooden board on the kitchen table as being an integral part of life. On it was always bread, cheese and saucisson sec - dried sausage. Amar now lives in Sydney and has teamed with Tony Sgro, of Quattro Stelle, to make a saucisson. It is similar to fuet, with soft mushroomy mould on the outside, but these are made with meat and fat from Berkshire pigs. These salumi have been through natural lactic fermentation in which lactic acid is formed that, with salt, helps prevent spoiling. In this, lactic tang is deliciously pronounced.
La Bastide Saucisson Sec, $63.95 a kilogram. Stockists include: Delicatess, Prahran Market; Spring Street Grocer, city; King and Godfree, Carlton.

Mettwurst

It is argued that this is the best mettwurst in the nation. It is made by Graeme Linke, a butcher in Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley, using a traditional recipe brought to Australia by Silesian migrants during the 1860s. Silesia was then part of Prussia but now is mostly within Poland. Linke ferments minced pork with salt, pepper and a little garlic. During this time the sausage becomes quite acidic, which gives the mettwurst its clean finish. The final Aussie touch is the lengthy smoking over eucalyptus hardwood, which gives this sausage robust smokiness. Enjoy with beer, cheese and naturally pickled gherkins.
500 gram sausage, $11 plus postage. Phone (08) 8562 1143 to place a credit card order. Overnight delivery.

Dried Chorizo

Go into a bar in Spain and you're likely to be served some chunky slices of dried, fermented chorizo, like this one, made with smoked bitter-sweet paprika from Extremadura. This chorizo, another made by San Jose, is perfect with a little bread, perhaps some manchego cheese and then your choice of beer, dry sherry or red wine. If you have a wood-fired oven, perhaps chop up some of this roughly with some potatoes, place in an ovenproof terracotta dish, drizzle with olive oil and cook until the chorizo is crisp and the insides of the potatoes are soft.
San Jose dried chorizo, $54.95 a kilogram. Stockists include: Louie's Deli and Cafe, Malvern; Altona Fresh Centre, Altona North; Emerald Hill Deli, South Melbourne Market; Rendinas Butchery, Balwyn North.