The Search For Sausage

I'm a big fan of Spanish food, always have been. I loves me a big plate of yellow rice, a stack of meatballs, a slice of chorizo and a chunk of manchego cheese. Although I am a British ex-pat, I am not one of those that likes to pretend that he has never left blighty, and who refuses to eat anything but fish & chips, shepherds' pie and steak and kidney pudding. By Spanish standards I am fully domesticated, I eat and love their food. However, they are not perfect.

One of the things they do badly here is the sausage. Now they do manufacture something that they describe as a sausage, but it isn't. For some reason they seem to think that the inclusion of lumps of gristle is mandatory, as is the pink colour they dye the meat. The end result is, in my view, inedible. 

When I lived in Britain, one of my favourite treats was a sausage sandwich with brown sauce. I still remember a legendary one I had at a tiny municipal golf course in Bromley, Kent, just before getting my arse handed to me (at golf) by Bobster. I still see it now in my dreams, two pieces of plastic white bread, just a scrape of butter, three sausages cut in half and a drizzle of HP. I must have eaten it 8 years ago but I've never forgotten it. 

But I've lived in Spain for a year now, and have come to accept the fact that my sausage days are over. That was until last week. Because last week I went to Benidorm, and in Benidorm I had a full English breakfast, and in that breakfast resided one, perfect, delicious English sausage. And when I ate it I was thrown back in time to that dewy morning in Bromley, around the turn of the century, when I sat across a formica table from Bobster and enjoyed sausage heaven.

This told me something big, proper sausages are available in Spain. I'd looked in all the big supermarkets and could find nothing, but now I knew they were out there somewhere. So I made enquiries, asked a few shady men in alleys, and finally found out about a shop here called 'Spainsburys' which is but a short tube ride from me. I looked on their website and found the holy grail of pork based food stuffs, WALLS PORK BANGERS !!!!!

Tomorrow I'm setting off for the shop, and that means on Sunday morning I will eat an English sausage sandwich once more. Will I hear a choir of heavenly angels as I take the first bite ? Almost certainly, and if not I'll sing their part myself. I love Spain and I love their food, but there are some things that the British do best.