[MR] BBC: The Sausage That Saved Lives

Garth Groff and Sally Sanford mallardlodge1000 at gmail.com
Mon Aug 26 02:44:33 PDT 2019


Noble Friends,

Ah! That title piqued your curiosity, didn't it? My Lady Sarah Sinclair
spotted this story, and I've had it bookmarked for future use far too long.

The sausage is called "alheira". Following the Christian reconquest of the
Iberian peninsula, the Inquisition spread throughout Spain and then into
Portugal. Many Jews went underground, trying to pass as Christians. Since
they didn't eat pork, they were too often ratted out by their neighbors
because of the absence of pork sausages curing from the rafters. So the
Crypto-Jews or *Marranos* made sausages stuffed with breadcrumbs and
chicken as a sort of false flag to protect them from the Inquisition.
*Alheira*  eventually became a staple of traditional Portuguese cookery,
and today is enjoyed by everybody, though now often stuffed with pork.

Enjoy the story at
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170929-the-unlikely-sausage-that-saved-lives
 .

More about the sad story of *Marranos*  in Portugal can be found at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrano .

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆


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