Italian Charcuterie Inspires Both Reverence and Innovation

Italian salumi is as central to the national cuisine as pasta. Thanks to an increasing appetite for the regional cooking styles of Italy, more chefs are creating salumi in-house instead of simply importing sausages from the motherland.

For Giuseppe Scurato of Ceres’ Table in Chicago, salumi-making isn’t just a well-honed kitchen skill. To him, it represents a way of life.

Scurato went to culinary school near his native Sicily, where...