sausages

Sausages here are far more abundant than back home. You can get fresh ones, as in needing to be cooked, but so far I’ve gone towards the dry ones that last forever in a fridge or out.

There have been a few tasty examples, but I think I’m going to start relying on the thin spicy ones out of a concern for cost. The one with olives in the sausage was good, but 5 euros for about 7cm is just too steep for my blood and bank account.

I picked up a new one the other day, sauccissons de coche (sauccissons are generally the fatter jobbies, while your standard saucisse is of a narrower gauge). I asked the fellow what the deal was with coche and much to my pleasure my ever extending French skills allowed me to understand that as the name ‘coche’ might suggest it had to do with a pig, or cochon for my Fr-illiterate readers.

Not just a pig of course, these sausages are made from the older sows that have lived their piglet purposes to a full and are going on to their final duty. I wasn’t clear on all the details, but apparently when they’re older their meat tastes ---- something.

I just had my first piece and it turns out their meat tastes, piggy. Well barn piggy, if that makes sense. This description is going to sound far more odd than the reality, and I must emphasize the subtlety of the flavour. The sausage tastes like a pig barn smells. If you will. An old sow spending her life in a pig barn might be expected to take on some of these scents of course, so it’s no surprise. There is no sharp pig manure taste or anything like that, but as you chew the sausage (as I’m doing right now) you get subtle hints. Yes, this pig pooped and yes the barn took on that odour at times, and yes somewhere in this sausage those aromas are emerging.

Not bad. Just a new and unique taste. Maybe by the end of the sausage I’ll be in love with it. The last one, duck maybe?, certainly grew on me as I worked my way through. And I can only imagine the olfactory joys an old farmer gets when he bites into one of these 20 years after he had to give up the homestead and move into town.

Memories.