4 Cured Meats & Cheeses Party Spread Customizable Gift Box

What’s the shelf life on cheese?

• Hard, aged cheeses stay good for a long time. Many days for sure. Sometimes weeks. Bigger hunks of cheese last longer. If it looks and smelled as expected, it’s likely still great.

• What if it’s got a little mold on it? A little mold is no problem. It’s a good sign, it means the cheese is alive. Scrape it off with a knife. But if there’s a lot of mold and it’s turning dark and funky it’s time to say goodbye.

• Soft cheeses and cheese spreads (like pimento and liptauer) are best eaten within a week or two of receiving them.

How do we ship artisan cheese year-round across the country?

In warmer months (early April to mid September), we ship cheese with two business day service plus warm weather care. We employ an ice pack and insulation defensive strategy to protect against warm delivery trucks and warm warehouses and ensure your shipment arrives in great shape.

The rest of the year (late September to the end of March), the shipping method will either be flat rate service (1-4 business days) for our durable hard, aged cheeses or two business day service for our more perishable soft cheeses and cheese spreads.

Hard cheeses have been carefully selected to withstand a longer transit time. Don’t worry if it arrives a bit warm or a bit cold – cheese is durable.

How should the cheese be stored once it arrives?

• Store cheese in the fridge, ideally in the spot closest to 50 degrees. That will likely be the door of your refrigerator or in a drawer where the temperature is consistent but not too cold.

• We wrap hand-cut wedges of cheese in a cheese bag before shipment, and you can continue to keep the cheese in that cheese bag. The next best option would be parchment or wax paper.

• After you open the cheese for a nibble, any remainders can be put back into the bag and closed with a simple roll or fold. 

• Do not freeze your cheese! Cheese is a living thing. Freezing will stop the natural processes that keep cheese so tasty. 

How should the cheese be served?

Regardless of the kind of cheese, it’s best to take it out of the fridge about 20 to 30 minutes before serving it. Cheese tastes better at room temperature. It makes a world of difference: the aromas expand, becoming more complex; more of the fat spreads on your tongue, which makes the flavor more intense. When cheese is warm you’ll eat less of it and enjoy it more.

Short answer: they’re cured, so they’ll last a while!

Long answer: Curing is an ancient process that makes meat safe by keeping it inhospitable to the microbes that would otherwise cause rot. Curing is what differentiates a sausage (uncured) from a salami (cured).

Curing works its magic by eliminating bad bacteria from meat in two ways. First, by drying. Bacteria need moisture to grow and curing deprives them of it, usually with a combination of salt and some environmental measures, like dehumidified aging rooms. Second, by fermentation. Fermentation makes a salami acidic, which kills the bacteria. Not every cured meat is fermented – cured hams aren’t, for example – but they’re all dried. Once the process is complete, cured meat is safe from the bacteria that would spoil it. That means it can be stored at room temperature for a long time, until we’re ready to eat it.

Cured meats like salami, prosciutto, and ‘nduja will last for weeks or even months if stored correctly and unsliced. Slice salami as you eat it – keeping it whole will help prevent it from drying out.

What if it arrives warm?

We don’t necessarily ship cured meats with ice packs. Since it’s cured, it’s healthy and happy at warm temperatures. To prolong its life at home keep it refrigerated. But hours or even days at warmer temperatures won’t harm it a bit.

What’s up with mold on salami?

Downy white mold is as essential to salami flavor as blue mold is for blue cheese. Every good salami has mold on it at some point in its life. It’s a sign the salami is aging well; the mold protects the fat from going rancid. If you’re buying one without mold it was probably washed off at some point. It’s edible, but you can also wash it off with a bit of vinegar and water if you’d like. If a little mold returns in time it’s a good sign.

We ship thousands of loaves every year to bread lovers nationwide.

Our artisan bread is baked down the road from us at Zingerman’s Bakehouse. We ship bread using two business day service – nothing slower. Our bread doesn’t have any preservatives, so we use expedited shipping to help ensure it arrives in great condition.

The bread will last on the counter for a few days in its Zingerman’s bread bag.

It does not need to be refrigerated – in fact, we recommend you avoid the fridge! Refrigeration will wreak havoc on the texture.

If you want to keep the bread for more than a few days your best bet is to freeze it.

Double bag the loaf—or part of it—in plastic and freeze for up to three months.

All of our full-flavored breads are completely baked all the way so reheating is not necessary. 

You can eat the bread right out of the bag (ripping pieces or cutting slices – no judgment here). If it seems a little hard or dry, that’s because the thick, crisp crust is meant to protect the bread. Just like the rind on a natural cheese, real bread has very real crust to protect the inside of the loaf from drying out.

We only suggest that the bread will give you the “just out of the oven” experience… if you reheat it in the oven.

For a warm crackly crust and a soft, chewy crumb, we suggest putting your loaf (whole, half, or part) in a 350 degree oven for approximately 15-20 minutes. If you’re pulling bread out of the freezer, let it defrost for about 30 minutes before throwing it in the oven.

1. First things first: What cheeses should you get for a cheese board?

The classic answer is to get a variety. Get a young soft cheese. An aged harder cheese. Maybe a blue. Maybe a goat or sheep’s milk option. That is still a safe and delicious way to go. But it’s not the only strategy.

An old vs. new world pairing is fun, too. Try two clothbound cheddars, like Cabot from Vermont and Montgomery’s from England. Or a classic Swiss Gruyère and a cheese inspired by it, like Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Wisconsin.

You could expand that comparison to a trio. Try three goat cheeses, one fresh, one bloomy, one well aged and firm. Or three blues. You get the idea.

Or perhaps my favorite of all: just one giant piece of cheese. Get a four-pound hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano, stab it with the old, weird knife you’ve got lurking in the drawer.

2. Then add some accompaniments.

Pick items with a lot of flavor. When you eat something flavorful, a little bit goes a long way. I like to go for variety. I’ll start with some sweet pairings, like fresh or dried fruits, preserves, and honeys. Then I’ll add a few savory pairings, like bread, crackers, nuts, olives, pickles, or cured meats like salami or prosciutto. There’s no “right” answer as to what you should include—it’s your cheese board, so the only “right” items are the ones you like best!

3. Don’t give me the cold cheese.

Serve cheeses at room temperature. Take them out of the fridge about 30 minutes before serving. I can’t place enough emphasis on this advice. A cheese at 40° and one at 65° taste completely different. The aromas expand, become more complex. More of the fat spreads on your tongue, which makes the flavor more intense. When cheese is warm you’ll eat less of it and enjoy it more. The same goes for cured meats: give salamis and hams a chance to warm up for twenty minutes and you’ll taste a world of difference.

4. Play with the plating.

All those old platters, the hand-me-downs and vintage shop finds—now is the time to use them. If they’re interesting, serve cheese on them, please. Slate, wood, porcelain, or cut glass are awesome. In a pinch you can use a big cutting board or even a cookie sheet. The same rule goes for cutlery. Bring out the strange Baroque silver, the ivory-handled one-offs, the loot that you never get to share.

As for the presentation, if you want to go all out do a quick Instagram or Google Image search for #cheeseboard. There are some crazy good Van Goghs of cheese out there, sharing their art with the interweb world. You could use those as inspiration to create your own masterpiece, or keep it simple and let folks dig right in. Either way, have fun with it!