In the westerly clutches of France, a cider-drinking priest is blessing a sausage. After his touching sermon, most of which I do not understand, the meat is paraded through the village to cheers and song. I look on in awe.
I am at, for want of a better description, a sausage party. It is in Brittany and the sausage is andouille, which is made from chitterlings, tripe, onions and wine. It’s nothing like its American counterpart that features only regular smoked pork.
It is a summer some years ago and I have returned to Europe from Cambodia with a renewed appreciation of offal. Chicken lung gets a sickening no from me, but other innards – past the British pub liver and kidneys I know of already – I now realise are nourishing indeed. And yet, here, in a charming Breton village, the fragrance of the andouille is repelling. I hope it tastes far better than it smells. To me, the seasoning does little to mask the lesser parts of the pig.
I am in a distinct minority. Andouille is a mainstay of Brittany, an independently minded region of north west France with far more in common with its Celtic cousins – Cornwall, Ireland, even Scotland – than with the country in which it is part. The sausage is one of Brittany’s economic forces; it is culturally significant, a culinary powerhouse. And each year it is celebrated with happiness, cider and wine.