Midwest Artisan Cured Meat & Cheese Gift Box

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.

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.

For most of its history, cheese has been a local affair. Farmers would bring their milk to a village creamery that could convert that milk into cheese and other dairy products. Cheese has always been the long term storage solution for extra milk—especially before the era of refrigerators. The creameries would produce the same type of cheese and offer it at different ages like fresh, young, aged, extra aged—that sort of thing—but most of their sales came from the fresh varieties. Cottage cheese, cream cheese, hand-ladled rounds and bright white logs were all typical and popular fare.

Folks might come into town once or twice a week to grab what they needed and stop by the local creamery, bakery, brewery, and general store for weekly supplies. A slower time to be sure, but the world wasn’t in such a hurry then, either.

Things changed, of course.

Small, local producers were mostly overtaken by the convenience and variety of grocery stores and shopping centers. Seasonality disappeared. Better living and eating through science and all that jazz. You know: TV dinners and toaster pastries and plastic wrapped blocks of orange cheese. The neighborhood creamery disappeared from the culinary landscape.

Then, slowly the trend reversed. Folks were over the microwave—they wanted well made products that tasted great. The “who” and the “how” were important again and our Zingerman’s community of businesses evolved in the same fashion: local baking, coffee roasting, cheese making. Zingerman’s Creamery hit the scene in 2001 and made an instant splash with natural cream cheese. In a couple short years they were making a variety of fresh, hand-ladled cheeses from local cow and goat’s milk—just like the old days.

Zingerman’s Creamery receives fresh milk daily from local farms within about an hour’s drive.

The volume of milk changes depending on the time of year, so they’ve become adept at changing their own production schedule to match the influx—or dearth—of milk. The cheesemakers at Zingerman’s Creamery use the same time-tested techniques that gave old village cheese its signature, light texture and subtle flavors. There’s a bright, fresh, tangy character you can only find in young, handmade cheeses. Like milk, butter and the other dairy regulars in your fridge, fresh, local, hand-ladled cheeses can once again be a staple.

Reserve the heavier, richer, more intensely flavored cheeses for a special occasion. Make fresh cheese the daily experience it used to be.