Andouille, Andouillette, and the Five A’s

Intestines are common as sausage casings, but sometimes they provide both the casing and the filling of the sausage, as with the French andouille and andouillette.

The larger of these two intestine sausages, the andouille, is salted, smoked and eaten cold like salami. The most celebrated is the andouille de Guemene from Brittany. Its skin is dark black from smoking, and the inside of the sausage is made up of concentric circles of intestines, resembling the growth rings of a tree stump. The popular andouille de Vire from Normandy is also dark skinned, but its interior is a patchwork of meat and intestines that recalls a piece of pale pink marble.