| Friday, June 27th, 2020

Dear Friend,

“Impossible! One cannot talk about charcuterie without mentioning the Roman Empire,” began Monsieur Roblin, looking over his spectacles with a professorial air, his tone slightly severe as befits a subject as serious as food. But his eyes were smiling.

I’d gone to visit him in his charcuterie on the Place Albert Roger in the village. Not just to pick out a piece of filet mignon of pork for supper, but also to learn more about his craft.

The shop was empty except for Monsieur Roblin and his wife. 

“Tiens, I will show you something!” 

Madame Roblin took over the cash register, and he and I went behind the scenes. We were in his laboratoire, redolent with the odors of delectable cookery – sausage, paella, cous-cous, pommes de terre au gratin, savory quiches...With a triumphant flourish, he removed the lid from the marmite, a stainless-steel vat. A large hog’s head was bubbling away, its snout bouncing up and down gently in a foamy broth, while a few carrots danced around it. 

“Fromage de tête,” he announced with satisfaction. Fromage de tête is made with all the tasty meat that falls away from the skull and jawbone after slow poaching overnight, along with diced up tongue and ears, bits and pieces of carrot and Monsieur Roblin’s secret mixture of spices. It’s a great delicacy and a treasured part of the traditional repertoire of les cochonailles.

Around the fête de la Saint Martin in mid-November, rural France gives itself up to what E.B. White called the “ritual murder” of the farmyard pig or cochon. I first became aware of les cochonailles shortly after our arrival in France. Strolling up the farm road, I came upon our vacher, or cowherd, his two brothers and his son straining under the burden of what appeared to be someone’s plump form, draped with a sheet and lying on a stretcher. They were staggering across the lane and into one of the barns. Was someone hurt? I hurried after them.

“Mais non, Madame!” cried François, tipping his cap briefly before catching hold of the stretcher again, his blue eyes twinkling, and a gentle smile under his grey moustache. 

“À chaque cochon, sa Saint-Martin! » 

Yes…for each of us, as for a farmyard pig in France, comes a final reckoning. French country sayings have a way of capturing an earthy truth.

François and his family had carefully raised their cochon from a little porceau to its present weighty size. It had been nourished on potatoes and cabbages from the garden. François’ wife Louisette had scraped all the plates and kitchen scraps into a pail for it. And then, it had met its demise on the Saint Martin. Now every precious bit of it would be used, preserved in hams, petit salé, pâté, terrines, sausages, boudins, saucissons, andouilles…or eaten fresh around an autumn fire. 

I recalled that pork is the most widely eaten food in France. 

“Bof!” exclaimed our cook once, vastly irritated, when I announced that we would be entertaining a Muslim, a vegan, and two Indian friends who were on a strict Jain diet for the festival of Paryushan. “Why can’t they eat ham like everyone else!”. It did not seem the time to enlighten Madelaine on the diversity of world culture, so I tiptoed discreetly from the kitchen. But pork is indeed a staple of the French diet, and for Monsieur Roblin and all other charcutiers, it is the primordial meat. He continued his lecture :

“In ancient Gaul, the pig was the basis of nourishment. Our country was covered in oak forests, where herds of pigs fed on acorns. And under the Roman emperors, our land sent many a pig to Rome, where the meat was greatly appreciated and prepared with extraordinary refinement. One dish, called the Trojan pig, was so expensive to prepare that many families were ruined by it!”

I wondered how this could be true. Monsieur Roblin, however, did not seem to find the idea -- of being ruined in the pursuit of culinary excellence -- strange. And indeed, porcus troianna was a specialty of ancient Rome. Like the Trojan horse filled with Greek soldiers, the roasted pig was stuffed with delicacies.

 “By the 5th century,” he sighed, “the métier [craft] of charcutier merged with that of the butcher, the boucher.” This was clearly a low point, and he paused, somberly. “Butchers had the right to kill and sell raw pork, but not the right to prepare or sell cooked pork. It was the oyers, who also roasted and sold geese, who had that privilege.”

The story of the charcutiers reflects the history of the Ancien Régime, France. Economic activity was tightly regulated. French kings raised money by selling commercial privileges, allowing Italian wool-sellers, for instance, to trade in the kingdom against payment of droits, or “rights” to sell their goods. The royal treasury depended upon these sales, and merchants and artisans grouped together to press their claims and raise the necessary cash to win them.

“Petits pâtés, tout chaud!” cried the ambulant pastry-cooks of the Ancien Régime, as they carried and sold their wares in the streets.

The triste dominion of geese-sellers – the word “oyer” comes from “oie,” or goose – upon cooked pork products lasted for almost a thousand years. But at last, in the 14th century, the charcutiers stood up for their rights. And in 1475, they resoundingly scuttled the pretensions of the pâtissiers «vendeurs de petits pâtés chauds» -- pastry cooks, who sold hot pastries and wanted the right to stuff them with pork products. The ''Chaircuitiers Saulcisseurs'' paid for their triumph, settling up with King Louis XI. The pragmatic king took payment in silver coins, and in return the charcutiers gained the right to found a new “communauté” with its own statutes. The independence of la Charcuterie was finally assured in 1513, when Louis XI’s heir granted charcutiers the right to buy and slaughter pigs – instead of having to purchase them from the butchers. 

A customer rang the bell. Monsieur Roblin promised to tell me more another time. And meanwhile, he handed me a recipe, which I have translated for you below.

With warm regards from Courtomer,

How to make Saucisson à la Roblin

The first rule :

choose the cuts of meat that are best for our recipe.” For a saucisson (a dry sausage), look for a lean cut of raw picnic or regular ham, and remove the nerves. Now, weigh the meat and add 25 % more of its weight in fat – but not any kind of fat! Fat from an animal’s back is the most tender and “melting.” 

Seasoning : 

• a dash more than a teaspoon of salt per pound of the meat mixture (or 15 grams of salt per kilogram) 

• half a teaspoon black pepper per pound (une cuillère à café or 1 «coffee spoon» per 2,5 kg) of meat mixture

• dash of nutmeg (une cuillère à café per 10kg)

• If you’re making saucisson à l ail, add 1 tsp of chopped raw garlic, ail, per pound (5 gm per kg).

The most important step is mixing it all together. First mix the meat and fat mixture. Add the seasoning. Then, add egg whites -- one egg white per pound (500gr of egg whites for about 8kg of the meat mixture) to bind the mixture together. 

When a small portion of the mixture sticks to your hand when you roll it in your palm, the mixture is ready for stuffing into beef casings. 

Finally, cook the saucisson for 50 minutes in water heated to 185 degrees F (85 degrees C). If you don’t have a thermometer, then listen for the water to start spitting. It will then hit a high, keening note – but don’t let it come to boiling. 

Et voilà!