Canense Charcuterie

“I keep the tradition”, says Mrs. Octávia, the face of Salsicharia Canense and holder of a knowledge that urgently needs to give priority to the making of sausages and the like made from the Alentejo pig.
Mrs. Octávia, 73, is the central figure of Salsicharia Canense, in the village of Cano, municipality of Sousel, in the district of Portalegre, or Fumeiro Canense (Canense Smokehouse), as she likes to call the space where she performs her craft. Working since childhood - a common and striking reality of yesteryear - she soon dedicated herself to this work of sausages and smokehouses within the same space where, today, her family business is located.
“In the past, the pig was slaughtered in the yard. Then he went to the kitchen, which was very large, where it was dismantled. After the meat was cured, the smoked sausages went to a home. The other house was used to store the guts”, explains our hostess. "With the EEC we had to remodel everything!"
Now there is a space for receiving raw material and another where sausages are made. These then go to the smokehouse. “It’s the only sausage shop in Alto and Baixo Alentejo with an open smokehouse. It is not a greenhouse.” It follows the dispatch house, where each product is packaged and finally placed in the cold room.
Despite the changes dictated by time, the booklet and know-how from other times prevail. “I use natural pork and cow casings. Cow gut is a tradition here. And we don't use paprika. We use aromatic herbs from the backyard and we will pick them up in the mountains, in their time, and the pepper is ours”, she guarantees. The origin of the raw material is another of Mrs. Octávia's care. “It's all from Portuguese origin” and, more than 90 percent of the product used, is pork from the Alentejo.
“From sausages we have: white loin, loin with pepper paste, loin with pink pepper; chorizo ​​with pepper and chorizo ​​with garlic and salt; regular farinheira, farinheira with pink pepper and chestnut flour, and garlic and salt painho, pepper and garlic painho and salt and pepper berry painho.” To these hands full of everything is to add, among others, the bacon; “Black lard lasts two years because it is cooked in water and is considered the second best fat to eat, after olive oil”; and the tete d'achard whose “true recipe belongs to a lady who is 100 years old!”

Everything is done between October/November until mid-March, but work in this family business continues throughout the year, always with the help of her husband and son, respectively, António and João Roberto. For example, "the loins are tightened by hand every eight days" because, as it dries, it loses moisture ", she explains since Mrs. Octávia wants to keep the tradition alive.