Let’s just all spend a few moments today reminiscing about the Great eN-Zed Saveloy, commonly referred to as the sav, not to be confused with sauvignon as in sav blanc which of course is really sauv blanc not sav blanc. Does anyone know which eN-Zed town has a giant saveloy mounted on the side of the road entering or exiting the town? Maybe Kaikoura should. Plenty of places have a giant crayfish, but only Kaikoura had Harnett’s Butchery Savs, perhaps the acme of all eN-Zed savs. Or Cheviot. Cheviot’s savs were better, in my humble opinion and that’s likely to start a neighbourly dispute of Hundalee Hills proportions.
I once asked what savs are made of and didn’t get a sensible answer. I even asked the boss butcher but he was a big cagey, secret herbs and spices, you know. Mac Wilson, several decades earlier, in Otautau’s butchery wouldn’t say either. I believe there’s something like cocaine or methamphetamine in them because most butcher shops, the successful ones, would give a free sav to any kid who went in with his Mum or Dad. I believe this is how addictions are started – a free snort of cocaine and then you’re a customer for life. I believe it’s a ‘blend’ of about 70% lamb and beef, a starchy filler that could be potato but could also be bread crumbs, water, salt and pepper. And it’s wrapped in an edible, casein skin like sausages. None of which explains the intense red outer colour. If the Chinese are right, the dark red saveloy is the colour of good luck and that’s what I always think when I see a pot of boiling savs. ‘It’s my lucky day!’ Oh yes, and that’s how you really cook savs. Boiled. It’s best to take that casein skin off them before boiling them because if left on, they split and look ugly like a skanky, old tomato. And they’re yukky to try to eat.
Savs are a rich deep red. Like red stop lights and red fire engines and sun burnt faces after a day at the beach. Speaking of which, savs go ultra-well at the beach, cooked on the end of a sharpened willow stick, which has to be green, you know, broken off the tree, otherwise it’ll burn in in the fire. And it has to be at the beach, because, well… it just does. But finding a willow tree at a beach is tricky, but not if you know the right beach. You know. (I told you before… Te Waewae Bay.)
Typically the sav’s skin blackens in the flames, but that’s where the Watties Tomato Sauce comes in handy. A substantial squirt and the charred sav returns to its glorious red colour, to then be wrapped in a thin slice of buttered white bread and then all of life’s worries just melt away, one bite at a time. Chomp, no mortgage payments, chomp, no election silliness, chomp, and no Willy Webb Ellis worries.
Go you good red thing.
eN-Zed 