Reduce your ecological footprint, eat sausage!

Three months ago I was a struggling student sleeping on a friend's couch in Toronto trying desperately to finish off a thesis that had taken the better part of my summer.  At the time I was watching way too many cooking shows (a contributing factor to the tardiness of my academic work).  I'd spend my morning reading gentrification literature, lunch with Jamie Oliver (whom, I know is easy to make fun off, but the guy still pulls off some sweet dishes), afternoons editing and revising, break with Anthony Bourdain, and the evening trying, sometimes even succeeding, in recreating what I had spent the afternoon watching.  It was a strange, and I suppose romantic last stand as a student.  

Around this time I got an email from a friend inviting me to a sausage making workshop sponsored by the Vancouver Slow food group, to be held in November.  Knowing I was moving back to Vancouver I eagerly accepted the invite and then promptly forgot about it, as it was both thousands of miles and months away.  Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised when she called me up to remind me about it a few weeks ago.

The event was put on by Sebastian and Co in North Vancouver, and Sebastian himself (a Chilean born and trained chef) walk us through the basics of Charcuterie.  Separated in groups by the animals we chose to use for our sausages we all eagerly got to work grinding, seasoning, and stuffing.  My friend Tenny, myself, and another fellow choose pork (all Sebastian's products are organic and free range) and decided to make a type of Sicilian sausage seasoned with wine, anise, chillies and plenty of salt and pepper.  It turns out making sausages is amazingly straightforward, and if you like to get your hands dirty, fun.  I suppose this shouldn't come as a huge surprise, however, considering that sausages have been around long enough to have been banned by the Roman Emperor Constantine in a particularly cruel law invoked as part of the Catholic reforms of the time.  Fortunately for us, eating sausages today is only a sin in the eyes of overly moralistic vegans and vegetarians, and not the state.

What makes sausages such an amazing food, and beyond the lengthy history and cultural dispersion of the food, is that they are products of what would otherwise be waste.  Sausages are not made from the best cuts, the most glamorous, but rather a mix of tougher cuts and tasty fats salvaged and recombined with a skill and love that nearly all other recycling programs lack.  Sausages are tasty and just good practice.  If ever we needed justification for such indulgence this seems to me as good as any. 

CB

Follow up:  Sebastian and Co run occasional sausage making workshops for the incredibly low price of $15, which includes instruction and supplies (all organic), plus you go home with a good 3 pounds of artisan, self produced sausage!  Check them out here.