after spending many years driving a truck into and out of many of the major city’s and seeing many ethnic neighborhoods I believe that with some searching that there are many diverse items to be acquired !

Totally agree! I use a local Asian market here for spices that seem fresher and less expensive than the grocery store spice racks.

They also have a nice assortment of specialty pork cuts that work out well for sausage making. Where else are you going to find pork liver to make liver sausage, although I will occasionally use deer liver for that and it is pretty good.

how many ideas did you get from the trip !

That’s a tough one. A lot of their processed sausages and meats are dry-cured and more difficult to make as a home processor. Not impossible, but definitely takes some equipment and expertise that I do not have currently have.

I probably will be keeping my eyes open for local sources of the different charcuterie meats. That stuff seems to be showing up on more and more restaurant menus and some of it is pretty good.

The guy shaving off the slices of ham has a special jig to hold the ham steady while he’s working on it. Note that the hoof is left on the ham throughout processing and serving. Just try that over here. lol.

Also some pictures of sliced, ready to eat sausages.

processhead dont see that at the local grocery store. Interesting. How much of that stuff did you try? A lot of meat there to sell.

We tried to eat something new everyday. We like shell fish and sampled fresh oysters, steamed clams, mussels, shrimp that was super fresh since we were on the Atlantic coast.

The local Spanish ham from black-footed acorn raised hogs is just amazing. Has a very intense flavor from the pork used and the lengthy time they dry cure it.

We also ate some cured Portugese chorizo that was quite different than the Mexican style I am familiar with, but it was also delicious.

We also had some of the blood sausage that was good, but had more rice filler in it than I personally care for.

Great trip in a great part of the world. Everyone was so nice to us. If you get a chance to visit, you should.

processhead Do they make all that on site?

Since we were at a large covered market in the city center, and there were probably 20-30 vendors all under one roof, I would assume this was processed off site.
This was pictures from just two of the meat and fish vendors and there were others as well. There were also cheese, and fresh produce vendors too. Everything looked amazingly fresh and delicious.