Even their names are poetry to me: chorizo, merguez, rosette, boudin noir, kielbasa, luganega, cotechino, zampone, chipolata, linguiça, weisswurst—to name just a few. Whose mouth has not watered in a well-stocked butcher shop or fancy food market at the sight of many varieties of sausages, fresh and smoked, stuffed with pork, beef, lamb, liver, veal, venison, poultry, and seasoned with herbs, garlic, pepper, and spices too numerous to count? Until about ten years ago, there was a small store specializing in regional French sausages on Rue Delambre in Montparnasse, that famous little street where at one time Isadora Duncan lived, Man Ray had his first studio, and Hemingway met Scott Fitzgerald in a bar called Dingo’s. Each time I entered that shop, I experienced a surge of emotions as if I were about to lose control of myself and make a scene. I’d point to one kind of sausage, change my mind and point to another, then ask for them both. After they were already expertly wrapped and I was on my way out, I often rushed back and bought a couple more varieties. My visits were a year apart, but the owners remembered me well and approached me each time with a smile of recognition and a touch of apprehension.
“They are bad for you,” some of my friends warn me when I confess to them my sin, as if all that stands between eternal life and me is one nicely grilled, richly seasoned andouillette. Sad to say, there are people who regard lovers of sausages as living in a kind of nutritional Dark Ages, ignorant of cholesterol counts and caloric intake. For them all those Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, North Africans, Chinese, Germans, and Portuguese frying, grilling, boiling, and poaching happily are living terribly misguided lives. They have the highest esteem for native cuisines, but sausages are where they draw the line. Don’t you know the disgusting things they put in them? they say to me incredulously after I appear unconvinced. Of course, I know. Some of the oldest and wisest cultures on earth eat them, is my defense. In France there’s even an organization called the A.A.A.A.A.—the Amicable Association of Appreciators of Authentic Pork Tripe Sausages. A group of upright citizens, I imagine, who regard the sausage “made with pig’s intestines filled with strips of choice innards mixed with pork fat and seasonings” to be the one and only ideal. In Finland, there is a similar society, whose members meet once a week to conduct what they call “sausage tests” while sitting naked in a sauna.
A sausage served in a restaurant of distinction can be an unforgettable occasion. An impeccably attired and dignified waiter has just uncovered a plate on which lies a lone wild-boar sausage next to a sprig of parsley. It is a joy to behold, and the first nibble doesn’t disappoint, and yet, something is not quite right. A sausage feels more at home at a carnival or in a steamy kitchen. Sausages are sociable. A hot Tunisian lamb sausage will get along just fine with a potato from Idaho. A good-looking chicken leg, tentacles of a squid, and green peas from the garden are equally swell company. Portuguese, who love to combine odd ingredients in their cuisine, make a stew of pork, linguiça, and little neck clams. Sausages are the true multiculturalists. A large, mixed, and rowdy company makes eating them even more memorable.
My old buddy Bob Williams, in Hayward, California, used to make Italian sausage and peppers to perfection. He’d invite five or six people, give us a few bottles of good Zinfandel and even better Chianti, and take his time with the food. Finally he’d pour some olive oil in a frying pan in the kitchen just so our noses would know something was happening. Then, in due time, the onions would go in so the excitement could really begin. Before putting in the sausages, he’d bring them out to us so we could feast our eyes on them and grow hungry in anticipation. Supposedly, a Neapolitan guy in Oakland who didn’t speak a word of English made them from an old family recipe. I never believed this story entirely, but such stories seem to be obligatory among cooks who serve sausages. There’s always some ethnic in a small grocery store or a luncheonette in some outlying suburb or inner ghetto who sells the best sausage you ever tasted.
Indeed, by now Bob’s sausages are beginning to send tantalizing smells our way, and everyone is rushing to pull up a chair to the table. Even a couple of elegant women who by their appearance eat nothing but baby vegetables are fighting for the bread in an unseemly hurry. Bob is carrying in a basket of freshly picked hot peppers from the garden for us to munch on, so that we can grow red in the face, gasp with astonishment at the wallop they pack, and gulp wine like water while listening to the sausages make their cheerful music on the stove. Since this is a confession, let me admit it: Italian sausages can be a big disappointment. They tend to be overdone, the peppers burnt, the onions likewise. It’s all about timing, faultless timing. The accumulated experience of the cook in an inspired moment creates a small masterpiece in a frying pan impossible to repeat exactly.
In a country where almost everyone is continuously on a diet, the sight of so many sausages arriving on the table is always a shock. Despite his cherubic appearance and his broad smile, Bob makes me think of the devil in some medieval miniature dangling a tempting morsel before a saint kneeling in prayer. “Oh, how wonderful, but not for me!” a few of the company protest, quickly following that solemn announcement with, “Well, perhaps, maybe, just a tiny, little taste,” as they reach with their forks. No one is waiting to be served. There’s not enough bread, and the sausages are vanishing before our eyes as if they are part of a magic act. A bit of grease has fallen on a pale yellow silk blouse, but its owner doesn’t care. She’s laughing with her mouth full. A sudden, horrible realization is on everyone’s mind: I love sausages. I’ll kill for another sausage. “Keep them coming,” we are shouting to Bob, who is back in the kitchen, and he’s more than happy to oblige.
____________
From “The Poetry of Sausages,” in Food and Wine, June 2000.