Lucanian Sausages (Apicius)
Reader ratingsLucanian sausages from Apicius: pork and fat pounded with pepper, cumin, savory, parsley and bay, mixed with fish sauce, peppercorns and pine nuts, filled into casings and grilled.
- Recipe makes
- About 12 sausages, 6 servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Rest the filled sausages in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, or overnight, so the casings dry and the flavors settle before grilling.
Lucanian sausages on the grill, one cut to show the pine nuts and peppercorns.
The story behind the recipe
The sausages at Trimalchio’s dinner come in with the very first dishes, “smoking sausages ... arranged on a silver grill,” over dark plums standing in for coals. Petronius doesn’t say what kind they were. One Roman sausage with a name of its own was the lucanica, named for Lucania in southern Italy, and Apicius, a collection of Roman recipes put together some three centuries after the novel, gives a recipe for it: meat pounded with herbs and spices, fish sauce, whole peppercorns, plenty of fat and pine nuts, filled into a thin casing and hung in the smoke.
What was a Lucanian sausage?
The pairing on Trimalchio’s tray was an old one. A century before Petronius, Cicero wrote to a friend that he used to enjoy the friend’s “oleis et lucanicis,” his olives and Lucanian sausages. The Apicius text opens by saying the lucanica is made “as written above,” like the stuffed casings just before it, then sets out its own seasoning: pepper, cumin, savory, rue, parsley, an unnamed condimentum, bay berries and liquamen, the Roman fish sauce. The meat is pounded, then rubbed again with the ground seasoning. Apicius doesn’t name the meat; pork is our choice.
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Making it today
Apicius hangs his sausages in the smoke to cure. Smoke alone does not keep raw meat safe, and curing sausage at home needs curing salts and careful control, so we make them fresh and cook them on the grill, then bring them to the table on it. A coarse grind stands in for pounding. Asian fish sauce, made like liquamen from salted fish, is the closest in a shop; we add a little salt of our own, since the fish sauce alone doesn’t season this much meat. Ground bay leaf replaces the bay berries, which are hard to find, and we leave out the unnamed condimentum.
Trimalchio’s tray set them beside green and dark olives, and What Was Actually Served at Trimalchio’s Dinner? has the bronze donkey that carried them. Cato’s chopped olive relish, Epityrum, Olive Relish (Cato), fills that place on a table today.
Lucanicas similiter ut supra scriptum est: [Lucanicarum confectio] teritur piper, cuminum, satureia, ruta, petroselinum, condimentum, bacae lauri, liquamen, et admiscetur pulpa bene tunsa, ita ut denuo bene cum ipso subtrito fricetur. cum liquamine admixto, pipere integro et abundanti pinguedine et nucleis inicies in intestinum perquam tenuatim productum, et sic ad fumum suspenditur.
Apicius, De re coquinaria 2.4, in the 1922 edition of Cesare Giarratano and Friedrich Vollmer. In our translation: “Lucanian sausages, made as written above: pepper, cumin, savory, rue, parsley, seasoning, bay berries and fish sauce are ground together, and well-pounded meat is mixed in, so that it is rubbed well again with the ground seasoning. With fish sauce mixed in, whole pepper, plenty of fat and pine nuts, you fill it into a casing drawn out very thin, and so it is hung in the smoke.”
Recipe makes: About 12 sausages, 6 servings
Ingredients
For about 12 sausages, 6 servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for about 12 sausages, 6 servings.
Seasoning
- Black peppercorns, for grinding1 tsp
- Cumin seed1 tsp
- Dried savory1 tsp
- Ground bay leaf1/2 tsp
- Flat-leaf parsley, leaves only15 g
- Small rue leaves (optional)2
- Fish sauce3 tbsp
Sausage
- Boneless pork shoulder, chilled800 g
- Pork back fat, chilled200 g
- Fine salt8 g
- Whole black peppercorns1 tsp
- Pine nuts40 g
- M hog casings2 1/2
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 tsp black peppercorns, for grinding
- 1 tsp cumin seed
- 1 tsp dried savory
- 1/2 tsp ground bay leaf
- 15 g flat-leaf parsley, leaves only
- 2 small rue leaves (optional)
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 800 g boneless pork shoulder, chilled
- 200 g pork back fat, chilled
- 8 g fine salt
- 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
- 40 g pine nuts
- 2.5 m hog casings
Equipment
- Meat grinder with a coarse plate, or a heavy knife
- Mortar and pestle or spice grinder
- Large mixing bowl
- Sausage stuffer or wide-nozzled piping bag
- Charcoal grill or ridged grill pan
Instant-read thermometer
Instructions
Soak the hog casings in cold water for 30 minutes, then run cold water through each one.
Grind the peppercorns for grinding and the cumin in the mortar. Add the savory, ground bay leaf, parsley and rue, if using, and pound to a rough green paste. Stir in half of the fish sauce.
Cut the pork shoulder and back fat into 2 cm cubes and pass them through the coarse plate of the grinder, or chop them finely with the knife. Keep everything cold.
Put the ground meat and fat in the large bowl and add the seasoning paste, the rest of the fish sauce and the salt. Knead with your hands for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture turns sticky and the seasoning is worked right through. Mix in the whole peppercorns and pine nuts.
Fry a small spoonful of the mixture until cooked through, taste it, and adjust the salt.
Fill the casings loosely, without air pockets, and twist into links about 12 cm long. Prick any air bubbles with a pin.
Lay the sausages on a tray, uncovered, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight.
Heat the grill to medium. Grill the sausages, turning often, for 12 to 15 minutes, until browned all over and the center reads 160°F (71°C).
Serve hot.
Nutrition
640calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 12 sausages, 6 servings
- Servings
- 6
Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for pork shoulder, pork back fat, pine nuts and fish sauce.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Keep the fat at about a quarter of the meat’s weight and the salt and fish sauce in proportion. A smaller batch can be shaped into patties without casings.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Without a stuffer, shape the mixture into small flat patties and grill them the same way. Raw sausages keep 1 to 2 days in the refrigerator, or up to 2 months in the freezer. Rue is bitter and strong; leave it out if you are pregnant. Contains fish and tree nuts (pine nuts).
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Apicius, De re coquinaria, book 2, Lucanicae; Latin text ed. Cesare Giarratano and Friedrich Vollmer (Leipzig: Teubner, 1922); our translation
Recipe details
- Course
- Starter
- Dish family
- Meat & Poultry
- Era
- Ancient Rome
- Main ingredient
- Pork & ham
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Occasion
- Dinner party