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What the heck is ... spanish chorizo?
 Spanish chorizo shows up quite often on the Tapino menu in one form or another. Chorizo is simply the Spanish word for sausage. There are probably as many kinds of chorizos as there are sausage makers in the Hispanic world, and there are hundreds of variations all over the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world. These are usually small 9-10 oz hard pork sausages, flavored with garlic and pimentón (smoked Spanish paprika). Many people think that these sausages are smoked and indeed they often do have a smoky flavor, but this comes from the traditional Spanish smoked paprika used to season them. The peppers are dried over smoky fires before being ground into this traditional Spanish seasoning. The sausages themselves are usually air-dried.
 Every household in Spain has a supply of at least one or two of the hundreds of varieties of delicious chorizo sausages. Spanish chorizo products, often referred to as embutidos, come in many varieties, thick and thin, plain or smoked, some containing very lean meat to be served for tapas, or with more fat to flavor stews and grilled dishes. At Tapino, you can find chorizo in the "Spanish Chorizo Croquets" and the "Razor Clams with Spanish Chorizo" small plates, and of course, in Chef James' "Tapino Paella" entrée. It just wouldn't be paella without chorizo! Like all foods with terroir (the special characteristics of a product derived from where it comes from, not how it is made), the chorizo tastes a little bit of the air and of the earth, the very character of the region. It is one of Spain's most important contributions to the culinary world. With its full aroma, smoky edge and robust, warm spiciness, it gives everything it touches the feel of Spain.
 Sausage products fall into four main categories: fresh (pork breakfast sausage & Mexican chorizo), cooked and smoked (bologna), cooked (liverwurst sausage), and semi-dry and dry (Spanish chorizo & Italian pepperoni). Most sausages are basically ground meat, seasoned and flavored, with added fat, stuffed into casings. You should never confuse Spanish chorizo with Mexican chorizo. The two are not the same, so don't try to substitute one for the other. Mexican chorizo is invariably a fresh sausage, available loose or in casings. Mexican chorizo is made from very finely ground meat (usually pork) flavored with vinegar, ground chiles, garlic, oregano, and a dash of cumin. It has a tangy, bright and peppery flavor from the vinegar and chiles. Mexican chorizo is also higher in fat, and is designed to fall apart into a highly seasoned, crumbly mass when cooked. Spanish chorizo, on the other hand, is made basically with coarse chopped pork, sweet paprika and garlic, and is cured either to a hard sausage consistency, to be sliced and eaten as an appetizer, or to a slightly softer consistency for use in cooking. Spanish chorizo will not fall apart when cooked.
Alexander Dumas observed during his journey around Spain in1846-7, "chorizos are made for as many days as there are in the year, that is to say, 365 chorizos and another 50 for the days when there are guests." Perhaps Dumas was exaggerating, not all families could have afforded a "chorizo every day" for the stew pot. But today, rusty-red chorizos are still to be found in most Spanish home pantries. Full of flavor and needing no preparation, they are a perfect traditional fast-food for hurried modern times.
 In The united states, Spanish chorizo has been used in cooking for many years, or so most of us thought! But what you may not have noticed was that these chorizos were not actually from Spain. A close examination of the label would have shown that the product was made right here in the good 'ol US of A, most probably brands like Conte's, which is springy and mild, or the firm, sweet Quijote, which are quite good in their own right, but markedly different from real authentic Spanish chorizo. However, few people knew that. By law, there was no "real" Spanish chorizo available in the United States prior to 1997 to compare it to. If you wanted to taste the real thing, you had to go to Spain, or at least to Europe.
 Real chorizo from Spain, was a banned substance prior to 1997, and most of it still is! (Iberico ham was not allowed into the country until December of 2007, either). Like most cured (un-cooked) meats, it was forbidden from being imported to the U.S. to protect the US Pork industry from swine diseases (real or imagined) that might be carried into the country by "raw" pork products. Hungry chorizo-addicts who'd tasted the real deal in omelets, stews, and tapas plates in Spain frequently tried to smuggle the sausage home in backpacks and carry-ons. They were invariably stopped at baggage inspection, and forced to surrender their contraband (the "sniffer dogs" have no problem at all finding chorizo). In 1997 the US Department of Agriculture and the Spanish government gave one chorizo maker, Palacios, from Rioja, permission to export their product to the United States. However, we still haven't quite reached "the real thing" here in the US. The Palacios brand chorizo has everything but the Iberian pork. The problem is, that no slaughterhouses in Spain (and few anywhere in the world) have won approval from the American USDA. Like other Spanish companies that export pork products to the United States, Palacios must import its pork from approved slaughterhouses in other European countries. Their pork comes from Denmark, but is cured using the Spanish method (in Denmark) before it is then brought to Spain for final curing and packaging. Does that make it real, genuine, authentic, "Spanish chorizo"? well ... kind of ,,, but not really! But, for the time being, it is the closest we can get to Spanish chorizo, and only the truly serious connoisseurs can tell the difference. It's the one we use at Tapino.
 Chorizos as we know them, with their characteristic reddish tinge, seem to have been a 16th century invention from the westerly region of Extremadura, where the first seeds for red peppers from the New World were cultivated by monks at Guadalupe. By 1611, a recipe had been published in royal cook Francisco Martinez Montino's book Arte de cocina. While pimentón, finely ground red pepper, is an infallible defining mark of chorizo, it may be sweet or spicy-hot and smoked or sun-dried. Apart from acting as a natural flavoring and coloring, its essential oils also help preserve the meat. Remember, until recently, refrigeration was not generally available. The most Spanish of all spices, brought back from the New World by Columbus in seed form, the peppers for most pimentón are produced either in the valley of La Vera in Extremadura, where it is smoke-dried before milling, or in southeastern Murcia, where it is traditionally sun-dried. Often, the two types are mixed to give a balanced flavor. By the 19th century, when the pepper growing regions began to mill finely powdered red pepper pimentón, the recipe for traditional chorizo was fixed. And, as with so much Spanish produce, it is also a highly inventive product. Within the regional range there are some fifty or so recognized chorizo types from around Spain, and many more similar ones from Portugal.
 While chorizo-making remained a farmhouse tradition in many regions, it quickly grew into a small scale craft industry in areas close to the source of the raw materials. By the 17th century, the small towns of Candelarioin (Salamanca province) and Montanchez (Extremadura) were famed for their chorizos, which were sold in big cities around the country by traveling street hawkers called "choriceros". By the 1840s, some 8,000 native black Iberian pigs a year were butchered in Candelario every winter for the production of Iberico hams and chorizo. But it was not until the middle of the 20th century that small family butchers began to grow into today's specialized cured meat companies. Today, a total of over one thousand small and large companies in Spain produce over 70,000 tons of chorizo per year.
The production of traditional chorizo and the traditional Jamón (hams) and Lomo (smoked loin) follows a time honored annual ritual. The period from late fall through early spring is called the montanera, or acorn season, when pigs feed on the acorns under the Oak trees, each eating about 25 pounds of acorns a day. The Iberian pig, which descends from the wild boar of southern Europe, is not a handsome specimen. It has drooping ears, a long snout, thin legs and dark hair. But its meat has a dense striping of fat and intense flavor, which produces the most sought-after cured hams and chorizo in Spain.
 The pigs are brought into processing plants when they are 14 to 16 months old. Once slaughtered, the legs are cured in a two-to-three-year process for jamón Ibérico (not available in the US prior to 2008). The loins are made into "caña de lomo", and the meat from the shoulder is used to make chorizo. Chorizo making is an incredibly simple process. Depending on the use of the finished product, lean and fat pork is chopped up in varying proportions. Garlic, salt, herbs and other seasonings are then added, perhaps with a little white wine to speed the natural fermentation process. It then rests and marinates for two days before being stuffed into casings and tied. This initial curing gives chorizo its typical slightly acidic taste.
 Traditionally, the next part is controlled largely by nature. The sausages are hung close together on the ceiling of a large, dim room. The roof is made of tiles, spaced so that you can see tiny bits of light through the cracks. There are screens on the windows but no glass. When it is hot and dry, the windows are closed, and burlap mats are soaked in water and laid on the floor of the curing rooms. When it is cold, the shutters are closed. Some chorizos are simply air dried. Others are cured in rooms in which a gentle, smoldering oak fire sits in a low barrel on the floor.
 Originally, all chorizo was made in this "farmhouse style" by individual butchers. Today, the vast bulk is made by specialist manufacturers in their respective regional styles, and with a close adherence to the traditional methods. In part, this adherence to tradition reflects the high quality expected by Spanish buyers, the continuing competition from farmhouse chorizos, and the strict specifications of government food regulations. Today, while the quality of Spanish industrial chorizo still rests on traditional prime ingredients, the requirements of cost-effective mass production proscribe less hand labor and more machine processes. Now the sausage ingredients -mixed lean and fat pork, top-quality pimentón, fresh garlic, salt and dried herbs all undergo laboratory analysis of samples for bacteria and quality control. Some leading companies have extended this quality control, by adding pig-rearing and feed manufacturing to their production chain. The only ingredients new to industrial chorizo are preservatives, brought on by modern sensitivities to disease prevention. During the 1980s additives were drastically restricted as legislation was steadily tightened, but basic minimum preservatives such as nitrate salts are still used to control bacteria and spoilage.
 Essentially, the industrial processing method is the same as the traditional farmhouse First, the meat is chopped, mixed with seasonings and left to marinate for a day or so, before being stuffed into skins. But today, huge steel mincers and mixing vats on wheels have replaced the old iron, wooden and pottery utensils. Seasonings are tested for potency and measured down to the last milligram. The meat's lactic fermentation is regulated by a yeast-like additive to prevent excess acidity, and the sausage-skins are vacuum-stuffed to prevent air entering before being machine-tied and stapled. The skins themselves, which have replaced the natural casings (intestines), are made from natural products, usually vegetable cellulose and animal collagen. The single biggest change comes at the curing stage, with vast air conditioned curing chambers replacing haphazard natural air-drying. These curing chambers revolutionized chorizo-making when they were first introduced in the 1950s, because they allowed year round production and curing during the hot summer months. Today, they are computer-controlled and allow fine tuning of the temperature and humidity. During the month to six weeks curing, the humidity level is decreased gradually so that the chorizos natural water content is drawn very slowly to the surface, to prevent the meat from drying out. But, at the same time, these darkened high-tech chambers keep their own micro flora, just like a farmhouse cellar, which is vital to the finished chorizos' flavors. When the chorizos are ready, they are taken down and packed into sealed poly-bags filled with an inert gas, which prevents further curing and drying, for up to three months. At this point, they are shipped all over the world, except for the US. Only a special few, which meet the near-endless requirements of the USDA bureaucracy, are allowed into the United States.
 You can serve chorizo as-is at room temperature with some good cheese, or slice a bit and add it to a paella, to some roasted potatoes or a summer soup. It makes a wonderful omelet by softly scrambling a few eggs with a handful of diced chorizo that's been sweated in a sauté pan. You can use it in dozens of ways--its flavor will give your dishes a new depth of flavor. Its smoky, earthy, sweet and tangy character is beyond compare.
 If you ever get the chance to go to Spain and nibbled on slivers of authentic, traditional farmhouse chorizo before dinner as part of a Tapas, it will be a revelation. If you can't get to Spain, come by Tapino for dinner, and we will show you the next best thing. We hope it keeps you coming back for more. (and if you do go to Spain, see if you can slip a couple of kilos of "the good stuff" past the USDA Pork Police, and bring them back to us. There might be a free bottle of wine in it for you! - but, if you get caught ... we never heard of you.)
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