Charcuterie (from either the French chair cuite, cooked meat, or the French cuiseur de chair, cooker of meat) is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products such as sausage and confit primarily from pork. The practice goes back to ancient times and can involve the chemical preservation of meats; it is also a means of using up various meat scraps. Hams, for instance, whether smoked, air-

cured, salted, or treated by chemical means, are examples of charcuterie.

The French word for a person who prepares charcuterie is charcutier, and that is generally translated into English as "pork butcher." This has led to the mistaken belief that charcuterie can only involve pork. The Food Lover's Companion, however, says that "it refers to the products, particularly (but not limited to) pork specialties such as pâtés, rillettes, galantines, crépinettes, etc., which are made and sold in a delicatessen-style shop, also called a charcuterie." And the 1961 edition of Larousse Gastronomique defines it as: "The art of preparing various meats, in particular pork, in order to present them in the most diverse ways."

According to the charcuterie article in the French Wikipedia, the charcutiers ("chair cuitiers") of Paris became distinct from butchers in 1475, with the latter retaining the right to sell fresh meat.

The word can also refer to a delicatessen, a meat shop that specializes in primarily pork products, or that part of a supermarket that specializes in meat products such as hams and sausages.