I was offered this Romanian sausage, filled with more garlic than garlic itself. It was fatty and the big story is, according to my host, this is the original European sausage. I am not so sure I agree but it was a warm Parisian lunch and certainly this sausage has a deep tradition. By the way, I tried to look up the actual website of the sausage maker and this is what happened – below.

Here is the clean version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibiu_sausages

Most of ancient history begins with the Greeks so that’s where our research starts. Based on their early literature, ancient Greeks made and ate sausages, (isikion) mostly ones made of pork. They were bought and sold alongside offal at the food market in Athens.

The Odyssey contains what might be the oldest reference to sausage. In book 18 a type of blood sausage is mentioned: “there are some goats’ paunches down at the fire, which we have filled with blood and fat, and set aside for supper; he who is victorious and proves himself to be the better man shall have his pick of the lot” .

In common era Greek sources there are references to a smoked sausage called loukánikon. The word is first recorded in Greek in fourth century. At this point cooking terms were shared in Greek and Latin; loukánikon is derived from Lucania, a region in southern Italy and inhabited by Greeks.