JoMart Chocolates: Fruit Salami – The Bite

Welcome back to The Bite, Sheepshead Bites’ weekly column where we explore the foodstuffs of Sheepshead Bay. Each week we check out a different offering from one of the many restaurants, delis, food carts, bakeries, butchers, fish mongers, or grocers in our neighborhood. If it’s edible, we’ll take a bite.

“Yo – youse want some salami?” is a phrase most of us Brooklynites hear on a regular basis. It’s a phrase that we’ve all probably heard in our native tongues since birth. It doesn’t phase us. But, when someone shouts, “Want some fruit salami?” most of would respond with a “Fuhgeddaboudit!” That’s great – more for me.

JoMart Chocolates will be one of the 21 delicious restaurants at The BITE, the new name for A Taste of Sheepshead Bay, taking place on Thursday, May 28, 2015. Get tickets now!

This week The Bite crosses the border of Sheepshead Bay and heads over to Avenue R for a very unique foodstuff; a log of JoMart Chocolates’ fruit salami.

Fruit salami, never had it? Never heard of it? Neither had I. Go ahead, Google it. I bet you didn’t find anything. Now try JoMart’s own website. Nope, it’s not there either. So, what the heck is fruit salami?

Fruit salami ($15 per pound) is a mixture of figs, sugar dates, raisins, prunes, cranberries, cashews, pineapples, quince and papaya, all formed into a log and rolled in coconut. This incredibly dense and insanely chewy roll is a taste sensation.

Biting into this salami, my first flavor memories were of an imported fruit cake I had a couple of Christmases ago. Like a well-done fruit cake, all the ingredients shine and the tart balances out the sweet. While the flavors were reminiscent of the cake, the texture was miles away. This salami is dense and heavy. If I was blindfolded and a roll of wrapped fruit salami was placed in one hand, and a wrapped Italian salami was place in my other, I don’t know if I could tell them apart.

Out of the wrapper, the first thing I notice is the scent; sugar and maple dominate. Tasting it is another story.The light sweet taste of the coconut coating was immediately answered by the dense sweetness of the figs, while the sugar rush of raisins played leap-frog around my mouth. Just when you think you can’t handle any more sweetness, the sugar dates join the party and really begin to rock the house. Cashews jump in adding some much needed textural relief. These boys really know how to get down!

When the curmudgeons arrive in the form of the cranberries, pineapples and quince, you’re secretly relieved by the tart breaks these fruits provide. Suddenly you realize that the sugar high you just experienced is going to be an easy crash.

Just like the traditional Christmas fruit cake, this roll isn’t for everyone. These are adult flavors and I’d recommend JoMart’s fruit salami to only the adventurous and sophisticated palettes of the Bay. Luckily, if you don’t think you’re ready for the salami, JoMart has the best chocolate and home made marshmallows in Brooklyn available for a fraction of what you’d pay in hipster land. Yeah, Jacques, I’m talking to you.

JoMart Chocolates, 2917 Avenue R, (718) 375-1277.