Stanley Feder

Thanks, Tim.

My wife and I are going to Bermuda at the beginning of August. We love good food and like to explore places most tourists don't go. Can anyone recommend eating places on Bermuda frequented by locals? The places don't have to be fancy.

I was in Barcelona two weeks ago and followed in the footsteps of food friends and recommendations of chefs at Spanish restaurants in Washington, DC. I was not disappointed. I strongly recommend you go to the Boqueria, the large market just off las Ramblas. It has hundreds of vendors selling seafood, hams and pork products, other meats, fruits, vegetables, candy, and mushrooms. What's more, there is a small bar called Pinotxo where they will cook you seafood fresh from the market and have already prepared a large array of dishes that require long cooking, such as beans with xipperones (small squid). Pinotxo is great for breakfast and lunch. You can get pa amb tomaquet i pernil (bread rubbed with tomato and olive oil served with jamon) there. Good bread, good tomatoes, great olive oil: nothing can be better or more difficult to duplicate here in Washington. At Cinc Sentits we had the tasting menu with in pairings. It was a fabulous meal and they chose wines that harmonized beautifully with each course. Even better than Cinc Sentits, for me, was dinner at Ca L'Isidre. Isidre's menu is based on the best ingredients available that day and traditional Catalan ways with food. (I went to Catalunya to learn about traditonal cooking.) We had, for example, an "amuse" of creamy mashed potatoes with octopus carpaccio, a starter of fresh, young green peas braised with lettuce and bacon, a purée of chick peas with black truffles, grilled prawns with course salt, grilled tuna with a tomato coulis, and braised baby goat with braised onions. All of the dishes highlighted the flavors of the main ingredients, which were fresh and intensely flavorful. You have some tough choices to make. And please report back when you return home.

Below is the recipe given in "Le Livre du compagnon charcutier-traiteur," by Jean Claude Frentz & Michel Poulain (Editions LT Jacques Lanore, Cachan, France: 2001) pp. 176-77. This is a handbook for people in the trade in France. My summary translation: For the meat you can use either: 1. 75% good lean pork, such as shoulder and 25% hard pork fat (e.g., unsalted, skinned fat back) or 2. 50% trimmed pork belly and 50% lean pork. The recipe includes preservatives and dyes, but says you can leave them out. It also says you can make the saucisse de Toulouse using only pork, salt, and pepper. Here are seasonings for 10kg of meat and fat combined: 150 g fine salt 5 g potassium nitrate 20 g dextrose "carmine de cochenille" (a red dye), variable amounts. [i would leave it out.] 3 g ascorbic acid 25 g ground pepper, white or black 5 g allspice 20 g garlic (optional) There are two ways in which the meat can be ground: either in a bowl cutter or a meat grinder. I'll give the meat grinder version: Break the meat down by grinding it with a 16mm or larger plate. [You could also cut it into chunks your meat grinder can easily handle.] Combine the meat chunks with the seasonings. Pass the mixture through a meat grinder fitted with an 8 or 10mm plate. [if you are making this at home you should make sure the seasonings are well dispersed throughout the meat after the grinding. This can be done by mixiing with your hands. The recipe advises commercial producers not to put the mixter into a mixing machine after the meat is ground through the 8-10 mm plate.] Stuff immediately into pork casings 32-35mm in diameter. make portions 10-15 centimeters long. The saucisse de Toulouse can also be stuffed into a casing that is coiled (instead of made into links), from which you can cut pieces.

Just returned from the Saturday Market and I stopped to ask my favorite artisan farmer/butcher for his Saucisse de Toulouse recipe. His home grown pork, salt & pepper. Nothing else. Although he did admit that 'authentic' Saucisse de Toulouse includes white wine. Next I stopped at the village mart with a very good butcher in the back. He gave me his own recipe and I offer it to you with his regards. 1 whole ham, skinned and boned 1 shoulder, skinned and boned (The right amount of fat comes with the pig! no need to add more) grind with a #10 (holes the size of your index finger) salt- 16 gr per kilo pepper- 3 grams per kilo One liter of cold water to facilitate mixing the salt and pepper with the meat. Mix and stuff in natural casings. That's it. And is exactly how most people in this area of SW France (Near Agen) make their fresh sausages. Now...dried sausages, saucisses secs or saucissons are another story. Or thread! I'll post this on my blog, too. www.katehill.blogspot.com ← Kate - Thanks for the research. Your guys agree with what we did on my pig adventure. Although we kept the hams to cure and used the whole shoulder roast to make a copa we didn't add fat & used the natural fat in the meat. We used the same recipe for both fresh sausage & dried sausage. Saucisson, copa & choritzo were a different ball game as you point out. ← I can't thank you enough for all of your helpful information. I will be making variations of Toulouse Sausauge over the next coming months. Will let you know the outcome. Great website Kate !!!!! ←

I'm not familiar with the KA stuffer. John Van der Lieck, a European-trained master of sausage making, from whom I learned a lot about sausage told me the best ones were horizontal hand-cranked piston stuffers. I have two, both made by Trespade of Italy. I like them a lot; much better than the small electric grinder/stuffer I used when I first got started 30 years ago. But the Trespade horizontal stuffers are not cheap.

I get them on special order from a meat wholesaler. I don't know where you can find them retail. But, I suggest you speak to farmers at local farmers markets. Some of them raise Berkshires. Durocs also have been judged exceptionally flavorful. I've been told that the taste of pork depends more on what the hogs have been eating (forage is supposed to be best) and how much exercise they get. I've found the pork I've bought for home use at various farmers markets flavorful, though sometimes needing to be brined to improve juiciness. But Berkshires, I think, are special because they more intramuscular fat than most other breeds.

I would like to get recipes for regional varieties of Italian sausages. If you or other members have any to share, I would appreciate having them. I tried to duplicate some of the sausages described in “Salumi d’Italia” (Slow Food Editore), but they are only descriptions, not recipes. USDA sausage labeling regulations require any sausage called Italian to contain fennel and/or anise seed. Most people expect those flavors in an "Italian" sausage.

John, I don't make hot dogs. I do make several kinds of bratwurst including two all-beef brats and some pork brats. Hot dogs are a form of cooked sausage. The ingredients are emulsified in a machine called a bowl cutter, stuffed into casings, poached, and then quickly cooled. Brats and other fresh sausages are essentially ground seasoned meat suffed into casings. They are refrigerated or frozen until shortly before they are to be eaten. Stan

Sorry, I don't have any odd (at least not to me) combinations. I have been working on a lamb with green chlle sausage for a while; still haven't gotten the proportions right. I tasted it at the Santa Fe, NM, farmers' market in July. Thought it was great. The farmer emailed a recipe to me but it did not come out as I remembered it. You might experiment with these ingredients: lamb, garlic, salt, powdered green chiles, crushed green chiles, black pepper, and sage. The green chiles are hatch peppers from New Mexico.

To me, sausage is up there with fruits and grains as an essential part of a well-rounded diet. When it's not on the grill, sausage goes into meat sauces and chunky soups. Where can we try your stuff? ← Right now, you can find my Berkshire pork "French country sausage" and merguez at Arrowine in Arlington, finewine.com in Gaithersburg, and the IGA in Marshall, VA. In order to maintain quality I don't want to grow too fast. But if those three places aren't convenient for you, where would you like to be able to buy them? Also, Breadline in the 1700 block of Pennsylvaia Ave. NW is serving my sausages four days a week. I also make the pinchitos and butifarra for Jaleo. And thanks for telling me how you use sausages. I like your notion that sausages, along with fruits and grains are part of a well-rounded diet.

In September 2005 I started a business called "Simply Sausage, Inc.™". I'm making fresh sausages in Landover, MD, (USDA-approved facility). I love sausages but want to eat only the best. One essential in making great sausages is the use of the highest quality ingredients. In fact, I'm somewhat fanatical about that. For example, I use only pork shoulders for my pork sausages; and in some cases I use only shoulders from certified 100% purebred Berkshire hogs. (Berkshire pork is incredibly flavorful, but I digress). I use gray sea salt from Brittany and the most flavorful Hungarian paprika available. I'm willing to offer advice to amateur sausage-makers. I'm interested in learning to what extent eGullet members think of sausages as providing good eating and the ways in which they like to eat them (what meals? how prepared?). I would appreciate hearing your views.