Segovia Meat Market
218 Augusta Avenue
416-593-9904

In America sausages are victims of urban myth conjecture. They are rumoured to contain every repulsive, undesirable animal part our collective unconscious can will us to imagine. Carried through the back door and assembled in a dank horror movie slaughterhouse. That’s the sausage we’re going to get when looking at a menu that gives us a choice of bacon or sausage with our five-dollar breakfast.

Otto Von Bismarck, first chancellor of Germany, said, “To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making”. And maybe he was right. But he never met Leonardo Segovia or tasted his chorizo.

What makes sausage chorizo? Is it the paprika, the smoking, the fat content? Is it integrity? All of Segovia’s sausages (except for the chicken and beef) are made from buckeye, a cut of pork found just at the end of the spine between the leg and loin. The pork is ground, mixed with a bit of fat (about 15%) to keep it moist, and blended with different flavours: saffron & chili (Salvadorian), paprika, cumin, & garlic (Ecuadorian), saffron & cilantro (Columbian). What follows is, I believe, a graceful choreography between two people and meat. One person feeds the mixture into the grinder, which forces it through a grate into the casing (usually intestine, though synthetic casings are now common) held by the second person, who coaxes the tube along, twists it into portioned links and ties them off with string. It’s easy to romanticize the baker, kneading dough, while dismissing the vulgarity of the sausage maker. But love, the same love that goes into a smooth mousse or a crisp scone, should be found in every link.

I made plans to eat my way through Segovia’s entire selection of chorizo and I aim to do it sitting right next to the BBQ in my friend Sara Chan’s backyard despite CBC weather’s attempts to fake me out. We start our sampling with, I think, the best. The diminutive Spanish chorizo, cured and hot-smoked, crisps up quickly on the grill. It blows us away with the intense overlap of sweet and spicy packed into its chewy density. It should come tied with a little cape emblazoned with an upper case C.

After slicing into the spicy Mexican, generously riled with chili and cayenne, and giving it a bit of smoked sea salt, the sky opens up. I can hear the leaves above me shaking with the impact but the drops don’t hit me yet. Next up is the Segovia House sausage, a Macedonian-style blend of thyme, garlic, and oodles of leeks. Sara Chan says it’s her favourite. It’s earthy, straightforward, and takes to a little dip in Kozlik’s maple mustard like a duck to water. Which is trite but that expression should be changed to “like a sausage to mustard.” (i.e. “I didn’t think I was going to like jogging but I took to it like a sausage to mustard.”)

I’m now in heaven. Chorizo is one of my four Pavlovian food buzz-words (the others are kimchi, smoked, and mango). I will order almost anything on a menu if the word chorizo is in the description. They’re so versatile there’s really nowhere they don’t belong. But to appreciate the flavour pairings of Segovia’s sausages they need to be grilled to medium over an open flame and seasoned with just a pinch of fleur de sel.

Droplets sizzle against the grill and I start speed-loading it with all the chorizo plus some rapini I’ve soaked in garlic oil. I’m committed as much to defying the elements as I am to avoiding something called “So You Think You Can Dance?” promised on the television inside. I can’t figure if the program’s name is a question, a proposition, or an insult. And I’d rather not find out. I’m caught in a whirl of motion as the chorizo moves quickly from grill to table to tummy. The Columbian, sweet and aromatic, is gobbled in a flurry as the bitter green vegetables assuage the guilt of our unrestrained porkosity. As I rush back and forth, stuffing bits of challah into my mouth, the rain intensifies and my friends start clearing the table (beers first) around me. In the end I’m alone in the rain with a paprika-heavy slice of Ecuadorian chorizo for company.

I reach for the challah, tear off a hunk, press a slice of hot-off-the-grill chorizo into it, and pop the combination into my mouth as the rain beats down on my head. Licking my fingers clean of cilantro infused pork fat I can taste rainwater too. Those bullshit artists at the CBC and weather.com have been Chicken-Little-ing about a 70% chance of thunderstorms for 10 days straight. Congratulations on psyching me out by way of establishing no faith in weather prediction as a science. I’m standing my ground out here.

I never claimed that I could dance. And I’d prefer not to dishonour the pig, or Leonardo, whose hands made this sausage. A third generation butcher, he began working in his father’s shop at age seven, standing on top of a milk crate to operate the cash register. His amazing chorizo fresca, made in a dozen styles, is supplied to many local restaurants (El Rancho, La Hacienda, Plaza Flamenco).

Next door his brother Alfonso runs El Gordo, an empanada shop named after a childhood toy. El Gordo sells no less than 30 varieties of empanada from the traditional spinach & feta, to the esoteric chorizo & kimchi, to sweet mango & ricotta. Leonardo would love to unveil a dozen more chorizo and empanada recipes but time, space, and labour are limited. And it’s still a family business. Cousin Josh is in the butcher shop with him and girlfriend Graziela makes the empanada pastry. If hiring outside the family is so unthinkable he may need to have children if he wants to expand the selection of chorizo. But that’s what kids are for right?