Sabores do Tuela

Elisa Augusta made her first sausage at age 12. Today has 88, her own drift of Bisaros pigs, but still dominates the art as very few. Her first commandment: to do as she had learned in childhood: "I do everything by hand, the old-fashioned way. I have never measured anything.” To this end, she tells a curious story. "Sometimes I have been told that the correct recipe is 14 grams of salt per pound of meat. I put a hand of salt. I always did. Out of curiosity, I asked my son-in-law to weigh this salt hand. Do you know how much it weighed? 14 grams." The son-in-law of whom she speaks is Albino Talhas, who only does not speak to the pigs, because they, although very special, still do not speak. It is he who walks through the hog pen and through the fields to make sure they eat what they need: grass, barley, pumpkin, beet, corn, potato, chestnut, walnut. "When they come out [around 5/6 months], that's what they get," he says. Well-fed they can reach 250 kilos. "There is no pig like Bísaro," he says. The mother-in-law, sitting next to him, nods in confirmation. She knows.