Lunchtime
It is the afternoon now and Jesús has started to prepare the frita de cerdo de matanzas for our lunch. The porrón keeps coming my way and I keep accepting it. Jesús keeps a check on us as we continue with the sobrasada.
As I have mentioned, due to Ibiza’s damp climate not really favouring the drying of cured meats, almost the entire pig is made into sobrasada.
The meat and fat are chopped into cubes and then put through the mincer into an enormous wooden box (see photo from 8am post). It is then seasoned but not by Jesus. Manel is the man for this job and it is a sight to behold, if you will forgive the upcoming pun. He is led forward by the arm. He’s quite the cat - sunglasses, tall, skinny, a full head of swept back white hair on his seventy plus years head. He rolls up his sleeves and starts pumping his hands through the mix. He calls for the salt, is given the bag and begins to pour. The same with the pimentón, the black pepper, white pepper, allspice and ground nutmeg (this with a teaspoon). Then he goes back to the mixture. He spends twenty minutes pumping and adjusting.
There is something odd about Manel, the way he holds himself, the way he was led forward, his gaze a little off. I realise that Manel is blind. This is superb. Like a piano tuner whose ear is just that little bit more refined, Blind Manel’s sense of taste is just that little bit more discriminating, sensitive. That is why he is the seasoner. I love it. It is like something out of a fairy tale.
When Manel is satisfied with the mix, Jesús tries it. He approves and we all (about sixteen or so) sit down to the frita de matanzas. I have quite a bit of wine with the lunch which is delicious but fatty and therefore needs the wine. All of it.
With lunch finished, the afternoon’s sausage making begins.
Sausage making is odd. The machine that is used is like an enormous stainless steel syringe. The meat is loaded into the open end of the cylinder and a plunger then cranks the mince through a long nozzle at the other end, into the intestine which acts as the skin. When I have made sausages in the past, the whole length of the intestine is fed onto a nozzle.
The oddest thing about getting the skin onto the nozzle is that it is like putting on a very, very lengthy condom. That is still fairly ok but when the plunger forces the meat through the nozzle and into the skin, you have to help feed it with your hand and that feels like you are helping someone take a crap into a 12ft condom.
The method here is different. Each sobrasada is made individually. Twelve inch lengths of intestine are cut and fed onto the nozzle. Each one is filled and tied individually. To my mind it is an excruciatingly painstaking method. Were anyone to sit down and think up the most time consuming way to stuff a sausage, then this is what they would come up with. But that is my northern European hurry-hurry-hurrry-lets-have-sandwiches-for-lunch-instead-of-sitting-down-and-breaking-bread-with-our-companions-and-drinking-some-wine-whilst-we-are-at-it mentality. Here it isn’t about getting it done quicker. It’s about sharing time together, doing something together.
As I think about this, I take yet another long messy gurgle from the porrón and virtually pass out on some hay bales.
*
I am appalled to say that all the rest of the day was a bit of a blur that melted into sleep.
I awoke to find the job complete – twenty kilos of black pudding and one hundred and sixty, foot long sobrasadas - and everyone sitting down to eat the Arroz de Matanzas. It was now dark, especially inside my head.
Arroz de Matanzas
Cut up cubes of pork loin and chop up some ribs. Season heartily with salt pepper and plenty of pimentón. In a pan big enough to take everything, fry the meat in pork fat with some of its liver and some chicken livers. Remove the livers when lightly cooked to be used in the picada at the end.
When the meat is nicely coloured add chopped red peppers and skinned, seeded tomatoes. Let this all chupachup away for a bit then add saffron and mushrooms (jarred milkcaps were what were used here). Cook that all together for a bit then add stock (made with some of the bones from the pig in this case).
Let all of this bubble away whilst you make the picada with parsley, garlic, the livers and the pulp from soaked and scraped ñora peppers (Sorry, I don’t know the translation. Nor does google apparently). Blitz it all together. Stir it into the pot and then swirl in the rice, moving everything around every once in a while, to keep it from sticking. Fifteen minutes later, it's ready to eat. But better if you give it a moment to gather strength.
I have absolutely REVELLED in reading about this awesome experience. I laughed out loud several times, and the loudest guffaw was at this, "feels like you are helping someone take a crap into a 12ft condom." EVOCATIVE!
ñora: Capsicum annuum, var. bola (ball, cos it's round). Always used dried, soaked and torn, or scraped from the skin, v. mildly fiery. C, annuum is the Mexican native, which lantern-shaped and hangs down, while the Chilean sp., C. frutescens, is torpedo-shaped and sticks up. There are a great many hybrids.