Do not be afraid of charcuterie. It is a technique for meat preservation, the origins of which are lost in time. If people wearing leather sandals without electricity can do it, then so can you. I am a lawyer, not a chef and I can do it. The book is a record of my experience and drawn from a diary in which I kept recipes, observations and the results over the past four years. Hence, the title to the book. It was written primarily because the books that were available to me I did not find helpful. Charcuterie is thousands of years old. I hope that you will become a torch bearer of such traditions. Friends, family and associates will hold you in even higher esteem, if that is possible. Your entrance into a gathering, once quite unnoticed, will now be like walking into a roomful of meerkats. Never trust a vegan.