Andouillette: The Mysterious Charcuterie of Southern France
What's a "veal strawberry" anyway?
Charcuterie is the the art of preserving animal flesh, and it reaches its pinnacle in France. Even in today’s world, when the strictly utilitarian need to protect food from rot has been obviated by refrigerators and freezers, charcuterie is still practiced throughout the world for its unique flavors and textures. And it still reaches its pinnacle in France.
But there is a particular kind of charcuterie from southern France called andouillette (the ll makes a y sound) that persistently evaded my anatomical understanding. While most charcuterie types use intestine casing, the stuffing inside of andouillette is also intestines. But which part?
Confusing me further was the term fraise de veau, which literally means strawberry of veal - this makes up andouillette’s inside stuffing. The only anatomical explanation I could find is that it refers to “the membrane surrounding a calf’s small intestines.” But this didn’t make sense to me.
So on a recent trip to Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France, I got the unique opportunity to tour an andouillette production facility. And I literally saw how the sausage is made.
I met Pierre, the CEO of Bobosse, a charcuterie company based north of Lyon. Pierre didn’t know which part of the intestines fraise de veau referred to, but his operations manager Fabrice did. He said it comes from the first part of the small intestines, just after the animal’s fourth stomach. In other words, fraise de veau is the duodenum (the first portion of the small intestines), not to be confused with the second portion (jejunum) or the third (ileum). And it is indeed the intestines themselves - not some membrane around them. Fabrice said this part is especially prized because it is the finest and best-tasting of any portion of the intestines.
Here’s how it works: The Bobosse factory receives shipments of large bags of veal duodenum that’s already been cleaned and boiled.
They marinate them in a mixture that includes mustard for several days. And then they pack them into casing made from the large intestines of a pig. Here’s a video:
These sausages are then boiled, which cinches up the casing. They’re then cooled and packaged for sale. Andouillette can be eaten as is, while many chefs slice them thick and sauté the slices to brown both faces.
So andouillette, at least according to the Bobosse recipe, is the duodenum of a calf stuffed into the large intestines of a pig. It’s important to note that recipes for everything, including andouillette, vary dramatically from region to region, town to town, and house to house. So Bobosse’s recipe is far from universal. Interestingly, using veal intestines was banned in France beginning with the mad cow scare of the 1990s, and only in 2018 was the ban reversed. During those intervening decades, Bobosse and others used pig intestines (the same portion, the duodenum) instead of veal.
Also, it turns out the word fraise here doesn’t actually refer to strawberries. Instead it refers to a fluffy collar that was in fashion in Europe centuries ago. Do you think it looks similar to whorls of duodenum inside an andouillette?
Final note: don’t confuse andouillette with andouille, which is made in a different part of France and from a different part of the gastrointestinal tract. Look out for a future post on precisely this linguistic and anatomic dissection.