the struggle for knowledge - I mean sausages

For Thanksgiving weekend, some more American food. I mean 'American', of course; in America they call these 'Italian sausages' and we used to have them in chunks in our spaghetti sauce. They were my favourite, after meat loaf & scalloped potatoes.

Now, there is a big difference anyway between every American sausage and every English one; and there is also a difference between the various 'ethnic' foods - Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Thai, etc - as served up in the States and in Britain. So the fact that 'Italian sausages' in this country are nothing like the ones I loved as a child has never surprised me. They seem to be basically English sausages with peppers, chili, tomatoes in them.

I don't have very many 'ex-pat moments', but those I do have are usually about food. Over the years I've tried with little success to replicate the classic American 'link or patty'. A sachet of "sausage seasoning" for intrepid home-sausage-makers, sent untold years ago by a friend, was too salty to work very well - but I did extrapolate some principles from it. Sage, fennel - but what is the classic recipe? I know someone, somewhere, knows it.

Fennel also turned out to be a key to the Italian ones. (How we struggle for knowledge in this life!) Since I worked that out I put fennel in my sauces. It has helped, especially where the recipe may say "use the best Italian sausages you can afford". But it's still never quite right.

So! Yesterday, dawdling home from the Angel, I stopped - peckish - in the little Italian deli in Cross Street. (What is it called?) And then it happened. There - sitting right where they have been for probably the past twenty years, and almost certainly for the fifteen I have been living in N16 - they were. In a pack. Fat, clearly Italian, fennel sausages. Even their label was in Italian. I tell you, I bought them so fast I still don't know how much they were - and I don't care. And how lovely were they? That solidity, that authoritative texture! They so didn't turn to mush in the pan. And they were divinely delicious.

Here's what I did with them:

onion, sliced, cooked gently with garlic in olive oil while the sausages brown. Two bay leaves, some marjoram, some thyme. Chop sausages into four pieces each when they're done enough to not fall apart (but anyway, they won't!). Add a tin of borlotti beans and one of chopped tomatoes. Let cook for some time and then have on your pasta.

Give thanks!