Griskött Korv inne om Titulera om Lucan

This is a recipe inspired by a Roman recipe, and was served as part of the feast at Ymir 2008.

Instead of moving forward in time for this recipe, I chose to look backwards to Rome for these sausages.  I have cooked these two ways, one as a milder “feast” version, the other with unusual ingredients (pine nuts and “fish sauce”) – the recipe here includes all ingredients.  The feast sausages were smoked, but if a smoker is not available, a touch of liquid smoke can add that note.

The source for these is Apicius, with a recipe for “Lucanian sausage”: 

Lucanian sausage or meat pudding is made similar to the above. Crush pepper, cumin, savory, rue, parsley, condiment, laurel berries and broth; mix with finely chopped pork and pound well with broth. To this mixture, being rich, add whole pepper and nuts. When filling casings carefully push the meat through.  Hang sausage up to smoke. (Apicius and Vehling)

I could not source laurel berries, and I chose not to use rue because it is an abortifacient and poisonous in some quantities. I assumed that “condiment” meant liquamen, which is a fermented fish sauce – I used Thai fish sauce as the closest substitute I could find (George), it adds a salty, savory flavor to the sausage. The nuts used are pine nuts, and since I was not smoking and drying the sausage, I did not add whole peppercorns – while an occasional whole pepper is pleasant in a dried sausage like a salami, it is not in a fresh sausage.

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