About

Hello and welcome to Taste of Artisan, a website dedicated to helping people learn to make and enjoy delicious artisan foods at home.

My name is Victor Vitaly and I am the creator of this website. I have a strong passion for food made by hand using traditional methods from high quality ingredients. I have been making my own breads, sausages, cheeses, beer, ciders and other artisan foods for nearly two decades now. It may come as a surprise but making these foods at home is not that difficult. It certainly is a lot simpler than most people think.

Artisan foods are widely considered to have superior taste and quality. The problem is that they come at a high premium because of better quality ingredients that go into them, longer time to make and shorter shelf life. Making artisan foods at home is a great way to enjoy them at a fraction of retail cost. Additionally, you can get to enjoy artisan foods from all over the world without limiting yourself to what can be purchased locally or online.

About me

I was raised in Eastern Europe in a family where bread baking, sausage making and food preservation were a big part of our life. I learned to appreciate homemade food, to understand what it takes to make it.  I learned that good food takes time to make. I learned that good food doesn’t need to be expensive or complicated but it doesn’t tolerate shortcuts.

I was fortunate enough to travel most of Europe and other places where I experienced local artisan foods, foods that I had never tried before. A lot of those foods aren’t available where I now live, or tend to be quite expensive. This drove me to begin making my own, which started with smoked sausages and simple preserves and eventually grew to encompass beers, ciders, fermented sausages, cheeses and beverages.

Today I am on a journey to learn more about making artisan foods, learn new food making skills, hone the skills that I already have and share my experience and what I know with others.

Some additional facts about me

• In 2015 I started what today is known as Craving Tasty blog to write about my culinary adventures, to which I am still actively contributing.
• While I never received any formal culinary education, I used to work as a cook at several small and not so small restaurants.