Ode on a Mortadella sausage

(with apologies to John Keats)

Thou still uneaten mix of pork meat,
Thou product of meat and chilled fat,
Emulsified sausage, who canst thus deliver
Better flavours than anything store-bought:
What additional elements haunt about thy girth
Of olives, or pistachios, or of both,
In the mixer or during cooking?
What ingredients are these? What type of pork?
What grinding needed? What struggle to mix?
What cooking time? What gluttony?

Chopped pork is good, but that ground
Better still: therefore, ye blades, grind on;
Not on the thickest blade, but, more refin’d
Grind to the thinnest blade thou has’t:
Ground pork, with pink salt; thou canst not be
Without garlic, nor can thou be without wine;
Minced fat, never, never canst thou be heated,
Though not yet mixed with meat – yet, do not grieve;
The meat will be chilled, and thou has remained cold,
Both to be at proper temperature, and ready to mix!

Ah, happy, happy mixer! that cannot move
In place, nor ever stop your blades spinning;
And, happy pork, unheated,
With added ice and other spices;
More mixing needed! More mixing needed!
For ever cool and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever mixing and for ever chilled;
And mixing fat in and still combining,
That leaves a mixture with extra pistachios and olives,
And milk powder, and properly emulsified.

What are these coming to the stove top?
To what saucepan, O mysterious cook,
Lead’st thou that mortadella wrapped in plastic,
Its mix contained within aluminum foil?
What temperature the boiling water,
Or gentle simmer with thermometer reading
Cooking meat by peaceful poaching?
And, mortadella, thy temperature at 65,
Will chilled now be; and plunged into an ice bath
To stop the cooking, for e’er more.

O mortadella! Fair attitude! with chunks
Of pistachios and olives overwrought,
With tastes of garlic and the pork;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us with your slices
As doth charcuterie: Good cold!
But also nice on pizza,
Thou shall remain, in the midst of other
Culinary disasters, a friend to all, to whom thou say’st,
“Mortadella is delicious, delicious mortadella,” – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

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