![]() The atmosphere is amazing, and Breton cider has got to be one of the finest drinks in the world.As for andouille, I am not convinced. You might not think you would find Scottish and Irish pipers in France, but that’s what you get. I love attending the fete, which is always a jolly event. The manufacture of the sausage provides local jobs and a huge boost to the economy, which is much needed in a town that has seen more prosperous days. ![]() He tells me: ‘It is eaten heartily across France. But there’s a reason andouille is so popular here – without it, there would be far fewer jobs, much less money about, and not so much of a community spirit.įormer restaurateur and now hospitality lecturer Peter McGunnigle, who often secures a miniature cottage in the village in summer, knows of andouille. Would I rather be in my favourite bar in the world, Guémené’s Aux Sabots Rouge, eating roasted hake atop lentils and bavette juicily sliced? Of course I would. In using the unwanted parts we are thanking animals, and with a glass of Breton cider, things go amicably enough. Sausages (to me, anyway) are supposed to be of baseness and efficiency. It is a little pooey, as tripe usually is, but its pungency does not limit its pleasurable factors. Plates fly from table stalls by the hundred. If eaten hot, onto mashed potato it goes – word is, at the festival, the mash is powdered. The andouille all the while is most commonly steamed and then served cold, sliced so to reveal its tree-like circles of intestines within. There is Celtic dancing and Celtic pipers. There is, as mentioned, a mass (messe du pardon de Notre-Dame-de-la-Fosse) and a convivial procession. Hordes of Bretons, French visitors and tourists from farther afield descend to pay tribute. And each year it is celebrated with happiness, cider and wine.Įvery August, the tiny village of Guémené-sur-Scorff, with a usual population of just 1,200, welcomes 30,000 people for its Andouille Festival – a wonky translation of the more poetic French of ‘Fete de l'Andouille’. The sausage is one of Brittany’s economic forces it is culturally significant, a culinary powerhouse. 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. To me, the seasoning does little to mask the lesser parts of the pig. I hope it tastes far better than it smells. And yet, here, in a charming Breton village, the fragrance of the andouille is repelling. 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. It is a summer some years ago and I have returned to Europe from Cambodia with a renewed appreciation of offal. ![]() It’s nothing like its American counterpart that features only regular smoked pork. It is in Brittany and the sausage is andouille, which is made from chitterlings, tripe, onions and wine. I am at, for want of a better description, a sausage party. After his touching sermon, most of which I do not understand, the meat is paraded through the village to cheers and song. ![]() In the westerly clutches of France, a cider-drinking priest is blessing a sausage. ![]()
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