Humble salami the stuff of legend

Melbourne's salami season has been in full swing since early June, and the back sheds of many suburban homes are now hosting a scene that is familiar to some, nostalgic to others, but a mystery to most. It's one of sausages, family and tradition - and the odd shot or two of restorative grappa.

For Italians still honouring the salami-making custom, the event is an all-in affair. In the dead of winter - and usually at the break of dawn, when the temperature is coldest - families from Coburg to Heidelberg come together to do what they and their forebears have done for generations: to gather kids, adults and oldies in the garage, get elbow deep in meat, stuff a bunch of sausages and hang them from the rafters to cure until springtime.

It's a long slog and a true team effort, with each family's salami bound tightly by proud regional distinctions, inter-generational secrets and more than a little heated opinion. It's also months before anyone gets to taste the end product.

This is a lengthy and often bone-numbingly cold process (remember: back shed, dawn, winter), so there's a clear necessity for thick socks, a strong constitution and a few slugs of grappa to keep spirits and productivity levels high, and typically, the salami-making day involves a hearty Italian feast midway through proceedings.

It's the type of hands-on experience most non-Italian city slickers will only ever dream of - the kind of thing that makes one want to marry into an Italian family or that only well-connected foodie TV hosts like Anthony Bourdain ever get a chance to try.

That was until the folk behind last year's hugely popular Melbourne Salami Festa decided it was time to spread the love and open the proverbial back shed to the rest of us, by launching the Salami Sessions in July.

After the success of the inaugural event in Thornbury, Festa organisers and Salami Board members Carlo Mazzarella, Linda Catalano, Marco Finanzio and Olivier David discovered that they had exposed a massive, untapped market of salami lovers. The all-cultures, all-ages crowd made it resoundingly clear they didn't just want to eat salami, they wanted to know how to make it, too.

When Finanzio took a trip up to Kilmore earlier this year to visit his salami-loving mate James Mele, the concept for the Salami Sessions started to take shape. Mele, a third-generation butcher with proud Puglian roots, farms his own rare-breed, free-range pigs and last year installed a commercial boning room in the sophisticated ''back shed'' at his Kilmore orchard. In what must be the ultimate man cave, the impressive space also includes a traditional wood-fired oven, garden views and enough space to feed a small army of extended family - or city-slicker interlopers, as the case may be. The Salami Sessions had found a home.

The authentic, hands-on workshops give an insight into the entire process - from breaking down a side of pig, to hand-mincing, flavour balancing, stuffing and curing techniques.

Finanzio, the owner of Thornbury's Umberto Espresso Bar, explains that initially the board hoped to run an event that would ''herald the launch of the salami season in a creative way'' and inspire people to have a go at making their own salami in readiness for September's Festa, where teams (and suburbs) will battle it out for the crown of Melbourne's best salami.

''At last year's Festa, we had lots of people show a really keen interest in wanting to learn more about the traditions and techniques of salami making, and the practical demonstrations that we held were a huge hit,'' he says.

The other aspect of the traditional backyard affair the team was keen to capture was the family-style experience of working together to make something. ''Salami making is definitely not a one-man job, so there's a real element of teamwork and co-operation - 'you stuff, I'll tie' - at the heart of it,'' Finanzio says.

And throughout the day-long workshops, with Mele's wife, Kathy, helping James with the cooking and their four children wandering about and joining in on lunch, there was a warm sense of being part of an extended family.

With demand for the workshops running so high, it's no surprise the debut series of four Salami Sessions sold out in a flash. And, who knows, this year's lucky salami rookies - now armed with the requisite skills and a shed full of their very own curing meats - might just give the old hands a run for their money.

The 2013 Melbourne Salami Festa will be held at the Northcote Town Hall and Civic Square on Sunday, September 15. Entries close on September 7. See melbournesalamifesta.com