With a splash of white wine and a dash of balsamic, any good meaty sausages will do nicely in this simple but mouthwatering dish
From Tuesday to Saturday, Andrea Legri makes approximately three kilos of sausage a day for his stall on Testaccio market. At about nine on any given morning, he may well be in the back section of the stall, which is visible through glass, his hands steadying the tabletop machine that feeds the minced pork into opaque casings. If ordered in advance, Andrea will also prepare sausages al punto di coltello (point of the knife) – that is, the meat cut by hand, which, paradoxically, manhandles it less and makes a colossal difference, producing a juicier, chewier sausage. One customer, who has been a regular for decades and with whom I am on dog-walking-nodding terms, quite regularly orders 3kg of hand-cut sausages for his family.
Andrea is a third-generation butcher: his grandfather took on the stall in the late 1950s, when Testaccio was still a slaughterhouse district, and passed it on to his son, Franco, who was later assisted by his own son, Alessandro, Andrea’s brother. While Andrea grew up around the stall, skill and trade, and worked there at weekends from the age of 18, he trained as a mechanic. Everything changed in 2018, though, when Franco, a central figure at the market, passed away, and the brothers reorganised: Alessandro took on a role at another butcher, and Andrea, who had just turned 30, took over the stall. Also in the back section, above the ventilator, is a small frame containing family photos, while on the worktop is a recipe book titled Il Macellaio di Roma Capitale Suggerisce (A Butcher of Rome Suggests), which includes Franco’s recipes and was produced by the guild of butchers in the early 1980s, with all profits going to families in need. Continue reading…
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