Boudin

“Essen un Trinken haelt Leiw un Seel beisammen.”, Eating and drinking keeps body and soul together this is one of the most important sayings in Saarland, and now it reminds me on how I seemed to slowly loose control over my body contours with every day of indulgence back there.. but the soul, oh man, the soul..

On my last day to celebrate life Saarland-style it was all lunch: Boudin, with fried onion and spring onion, grilled whole potatoes, mixed salad with zucchini juliennes. Best to drink with that is a cool fresh Pilsener beer, Karlsberg Urpils works beautifully. I opt for Viez, the dry type of Saarland's applewine, which is very refreshing but sports a rather acquired taste. To have something more sweet and juicy alongside the Viez, I also drink Federweisser, which now is bubbling a little more than a couple of days ago and is less sweet, more delicious, and much more dangerous. My rumbling intestines will remind me all day that I had the two most “active” beverages of the region and season together, raw and slightly fermented fruit is quite something..

I was surprised years ago to be, in Nashville, offered Boudin from Louisiana, that was of light color and looked like liver sausage, it had rice in it, and was spicy. What I did not know then: there are two kinds. French moving to New Orleans and neighborhood had Boudin blanc in their luggage, and recreated it with the new ingredients and spices they found in place. Saarland got excited about Boudin noir, apparently an about 2000 years old and very local and traditional dish.

Boudin noir is a blood sausage containing white cabbage, raw thrown into a frying pan and busting open and falling apart at high heat, surrounded by onions, til part of the sausage is black and crispy, slightly salty and savory, the inside creamy and moist and sweet from cabbage and cooked blood. Lots of onions are fried with it til they are very sweet and golden crispy; in my home area it is primarly eaten with pan-fried potatoes, again, crispy outside, and sweet inside, sometimes apples are added to that and fried as well.

Thinking about this multitude of savory & salty, and crispy & creamy contrasts, each part of this dish is actually really accentuating another, bringing this whole thing to a new level.. certainly something I am craving for every fall.

Boudin has a very short shelf life, and can not be shipped easily. That means, it is very specific to the region it has been made in, and very specific to the time of slaughter. This year I was lucky to be in Saarland just at the right time of the year to taste this unique dish again.

As with anything, it is possible to make it at home. I referred to this cookbook: "Das Kochbuch aus dem Saarland", previously in my Schwenker post. So far, all recipes I tried from this book taste to me like home. So, here is that book's Boudin-recipe that sounds very realistic as well-

2.5kg lean, cooked pork meat
1l warmed blood
750g cooked pork skin
1 boiled white cabbage
5 boiled leeks
4 raw onions
pepper, nutmeg, salt, savory, majoram, coriander, maggi (a spice sauce you will find in most savory dishes in Saarland)

Mix all but the blood together and pass it through the meat grinder to get a really fine paste that then can be mixed with the blood. Add the spices to taste, fill into casings, and let them cook in boiling water for 30 minutes. Cool with cold water after that and hang up for drying. When the links are cold, they can be fried in the pan, as I described above.

Now, Boudin has a taste that, for me, stands out among other central european dishes - like there might something like cumin and cinnamon in it, making the spice mix almost arabic. From all recipes I read there is no evidence for that sort of ingredient though - my tastebuds and nose are so overwhelmed by this food they seem to get overexcited..