Frody volggEr Artisan butcher/chef BY DARBY DOYLE PHOTOS BY JOHN TAYLOR
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Frody Volgger
rody Volgger’s speck is pork, perfected. I’m at the counter in his small butcher shop, Salt & Smoke Artisan Meats in South Salt Lake, on a sunny Saturday morning when this revelation occurs. My two sons are eagerly perusing the cold case, debating whether we should get plump weisswurst or some herbed rabbit sausage to grill for dinner (we end up buying both). Chef Volgger hands us each a translucent sliver of speck—pork belly cold-smoked over fruitwood in the German tradition—that he’s just pulled off the slicer. It has the texture and buttery mouthfeel of prosciutto, but with the mellow smokiness of American bacon, and it practically melts on the tongue. Volgger snags a slice, too, as if he just can’t help himself. We all hum appreciatively as we savor it, and he says with a grin, “It’s good stuff, hmm?” This will be one of the many understatements I’ll hear Frodebert “Frody” Volgger utter about his products as we chat about his delicious legacy of work over the years. While he takes his craft seriously, he approaches life with humor and charming humility. Awardwinning Chef Viet Pham, of Forage fame, once told me that Volgger knows so much about sausage-making and charcuterie that pork “runs through his veins.” Not the sexiest analogy, perhaps (unless you’re a cardiologist with boat payments), but we get the point: The man is a magician with all things meat. Coming from a family of dairy farmers and butchers in Vorarlberg, Austria, Volgger learned about raising, processing and curing pork at his uncle’s side on their family farm in the Alps near the Swiss border. Long before “nose-to-tail” charcuterie became the foodie buzz term of this century, folks around the world used every part of the animal for frugality’s sake, for damned sure, but also because generations of trial-anderror figured out how to transform every part of the pig into something delicious. Devour Utah • September/October 2015 39