Only Vermont Club is proud to feature Babette's Table in our Vermont Holiday Collection.
After years of working a very rewarding but emotionally taxing job in education, Erika Lynch, the founder of Babette’s Table, was looking to make a change. As a Vermonter via Kentucky, Erika grew up enjoying good, Southern food and she treasured the fond memories of extended family gatherings with her great aunt, a cow farmer, presiding over colossal home-cooked meals. She knew she was interested in food production and after researching where there was a gap in the market and what products would do well in Vermont, she founded Babette’s Table. So the charcuterie dreams began.
Truly a family business, Erika uprooted her family with two young children in tow from Vermont to Gascony, France to study the old-world tradition of nose-to-tail butchery and French charcuterie with Kate Hill and Dominique Chapolard. A move to France may seem extreme, but there are no charcuterie schools stateside, and c’mon, most of us want to do something as bold as move to France to study charcuterie, we just don’t have the chutzpah to do it.
This dedication to the craft truly shines through in Babette’s superior product. While they produce products under their own label, they also produce for some of Vermont’s highest regarded local farms such as Pigasus Farm in northern Vermont and the Von Trapp Farm in Stowe (yes, THOSE Von Trapps).
The community ties run strong between Babette’s and their Vermont farming partners. Always being on the cutting edge of innovation, pigs are fed with leftovers from a local brewery which Babette’s says makes a much better product. They even source all of their meat from within 50 miles of their facility and that's for a simple reason–When studying in France, one of their mentors said you must always know your farmers, otherwise you will have no control of the quality of your product. All of their expertly made salumi is good, well really whenever, but if you really want to impress at your next dinner party, bring this and be the star of the show. So dig in and taste that difference.
