Sausages!

This was the last meal I had in Spain last weekend. Notice the lack of veg! I went to visit Howard in Madrid. The fantastic weekend started with a classic Spanish night out - until 7am!! after watching Howards funk band 'Watch Out'. You can see a video of them playing here. Howard plays the trumpet. Saturday night we had 'just a quiet night' finishing dinner at 1am and going to bed at 3.30! Good times though and you can't fault a holiday that ends with a huge slab of meet in a small countryside restaurant in the mountains.

Whilst there, I remember having a conversation about sausages. Now, despite the fact that many consider sausages to be the worst kind of meat, they really can be the most tasty treat, and not just 'lips and arseholes' as I have heard cheap hot dogs described as! I have a favourite from many countries that I have visited. You should try them if you get the chance.

England: Lincolnshire sausage - a sausage flavoured with sage and other herbs that apparently might become the champagne of England!

Scotland: Lorne sausage - That square sausage only found in Scotland, a classic for breakfast.

Texas: Elgin Hot Sausage - smoky, spicy, from the self proclaimed "Sausage capital of Texas (or maybe the World?)" definitely worth throwing on the barbie. My favourite one is from the Southside Market and Barbeque.
France: Merguez - a spicy sausage originating from Africa. Great dipped into some good French mustard, Dijon or coarse ground, for a picnic on the way home from a family holiday.
Portugal: Buttifarra - not good with a pile of salt but if you can avoid that (thanks Jimmy!) a wonderful treat served as a course in the middle of many of the multi-course meals we ate in Portugal.
New Zealand: Venison Sausages - Venison sausages are a favourite of mine in any country but one of the last meals I cooked in New Zealand was with Venison sausages, which I was amazed to find were the same price as plain old pork ones. Apparently, venison is one of the cheapest meats in New Zealand and at one time people were paid to get rid of the deer since there was so many of them. It's funny how one country's delicacy can be another's poor man's food.
Spain: Chorizo - Another spicy, smoky member of the sausage family found in many Spanish speaking countries.

Hmmm, perhaps it should be bangers and mash for tea? Or maybe toad in the hole? Or a few snags for our Aussie readers?