More on pork and saucisson

In my humble opinion (not that it counts for anything), saucisson ranks very highly in French food culture, besides wine and cheese.

Saucisson is large dried sausage, normally pork cured with salt, and eaten sliced as a cold cut. Sounds straightforward? Until you go to a saucisson gourmet shop and you'll be spoilt for choice with the varieties available. Like cured with Provencal herbs, garlic, nuts, peppercorn...or from pork to wild boar to donkey meat!

Yeap, we tried the donkey meat saucisson in Meribel, right in the Savoie region famous for its saucisson, it's powerful! I think Corsica is another region famous for its delicious varieties of saucisson, particularly the wild boar ones and we enjoyed it just as much.

Besides eating it sliced as appetisers, saucisson is handy in picnics and makes excellent sandwiches in between long hikes. We also tried fusion, by adding it to Chinese pork porridge with pork floss and ham. Just for fun.

Our affinity for 'pungent' food probably explains our obliviousness to the testosterone raging smell of nz pork.



I also remember fondly of the butcher shops we visited in Barcelona two years ago. The Spanish may be more obsessed with their ham than the French of their saucisson. Seeing so many hanging legs (complete with the trotters) straight in your face can be a bit off-putting, but the thinly sliced ham never disappointed us during our trip. Prices vary widely too, according to the breeds of the pig, their feeds, the region of origins, age etc. Just ask the butcher and he'll rant off all the subtle differences that possibly could only be picked up by a local or gourmet.

It's a pity we can't bring saucisson or ham from our trips back to New Zealand.