After I was out on my own, dad would on occasion give me a gift that was pronounced linguisi. thats about the best I could spell it. I think his source was from some place near SunnyVale CA. (heck it could be San Jose, Los Gatos, or any number of cities in that area)
It was a hard dried sausage, with a casing on it that had a white powdery outer layer. It was fairly greasy/oily and was often difficult to cut.
I’m looking for it, just for sentimental reasons. Can anyone help with a source for this? I’m not sure how it was spelled, just that he called it phonetically ‘lingweesey’.
I’ve found “Linguiça” but I don’t think this is the correct stuff as the thing I’m looking for is a hard cased salami that doesn’t need to be cooked to be eaten.
Possibly longaniza? I’m most familiar with the sweeter Filipino version, but it is often served hard salmi style and with the white powder you’re describing.
Linguica is a smoked sausage, generally not very hard. I think I’ve seen what the OP is looking for at Italian delis, just not sure how it’s spelled. It has the white coating. Possibly Likëngë or a variant.
Even though the OP says that isn’t it, I think this is it. I could swear I’ve seen it in various degrees of dryness, from semi-dry to a hard dry, sausage.
I’m of Portuguese descent and grew up eating linguicia and do so as often as my cholesterol will allow. It’s semi-hard, softer than salami; a little firmer than a hot dog. Never seen it with the kind of peel-off casing that salami comes with.
Although it’s cured and therefore edible straight out of the package, I generally slice it into rounds and fry it.
Me too. Usually depends on who is making it and how they perceive the sausage should be made. When I lived in Portugal, the stuff I ate was usually a semi-dry texture.
If your dad bought it “from some place near Sunnyvale CA” and he was a man who knew where to buy good food, then it might have been from Neto’s Sausage in Santa Clara, adjacent to Sunnyvale. They have been in business since 1948, and specialize in Portuguese sausages, although are by no means limited to them.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve bought a hard, dry, white-powdered linguiça from them before.
Here is their contact page – you could ask them directly, and perhaps they will be able to ship you what you are looking for! In my visits to their store, I always found them helpful in person.
[Note: I am not in any way affiliated with Neto’s Sausage, except as a happy customer when I was living in Silicon Valley.]
This is a very good lead, thank you. I’m pretty sure he found his source back in the late fifties to early sixties when he lived there. He may actually have lived in Santa Clara at some point, though I really don’t know for sure.
It is all around Silicon Valley. Newark has a Portugese festival, which I’m sure features it, and I first ate it at The Fremont Arts Festival, where two stands always have sold it. It is now available year round in our local Safeway. Next time I go in I can write down the info from the package. Searching on Safeway.com turned up nothing, it is probably stocked locally.
Here is a Yelp page for Linguica in San Jose.
I’ve never seen any similar sounding but different meat around here.