A.D. Livingston's Big Book of Meat by A. D. Livingston

Author:A. D. Livingston
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493034529
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2017-12-29T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

FRENCH SAUSAGES

In ancient times, the region of Europe known as Gaul, with France as its heart, contained sprawling forests of oak and beech trees. Pigs foraged on the beechnuts and sweet acorns, with an occasional truffle going to the best sniffers. As soon as the word got out that these acorn-fed hogs were of excellent quality, the Gauls started exporting cured hams and sausages to the Romans in large quantities.

In time, the charcuterie trade became highly regulated under various governmental rules and restrictions, explaining, I think, the decline of the homemade French sausage. For whatever reason, modern French cookbooks may give a few recipes for cooking with a variety of sausages, but they offer no directions for actually making them, leaving this task to the professional charcutiers. My old edition of The Escoffier Cook Book, for example, sets forth fewer than ten recipes that I consider to be about sausages (or how to cook with them), whereas it contains—in telling contrast—well over one hundred recipes for sauces of one sort or another. Of the sausage recipes, five are for “puddings,” as Escoffier called blood sausages, or boudins. In addition to the puddings, he gives us two recipes for crépinettes —seasoned ground meat wrapped in caul fat and fried—which may or may not be a sausage, depending on your definition. Of the other three recipes, the first is merely a condescending statement, to wit, “The most known sausages of many nations are cooked like the French kind, and are often served at breakfasts as an accompaniment to bacon. . . . Their seasoning is often excessive.” One of the remaining two Escoffier recipes tells us how to cook Frankfort and Strasburg sausages (poach for no longer than ten minutes and serve with grated horseradish, applesauce, or braised sauerkraut).

Predictably, Escoffier’s final recipe tells us how to cook sausages with the aid of wine. Although the recipe is short enough at first glance, it calls for 1⁄6 pint of half-glaze, recipe 23. That’s where the trouble starts. To make a half-glaze, Escoffier says, we’ll need, along with some excellent sherry, 1 quart of Espagnole sauce, recipe 22, page 18, and 1 quart of Brown Stock, recipe 7, pages 9 and 10. Astoundingly, recipe 7 for Brown Stock calls for the following: 4 pounds shin of beef, 4 pounds shin of veal, ½ pound raw ham, ½ pound fresh pork rind, blanched, ¾ pound minced carrots browned in butter, ¾ pound minced onion browned in butter, and 1 herb bunch containing a little parsley, a stalk of celery, a small sprig of thyme, and a bay leaf. I don’t know what we need to make the Espagnole sauce proper, as I didn’t get that far. All I wanted to do was cook a link or two of sausage!

Nonetheless, I have puzzled out a few French creations, starting with a spice mix that can be used in several recipes. Also, some modified French sausage recipes were set forth in chapter 5, Cajun and Creole American Sausages (page 156).

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