figatellu

Corsica’s dried pork and pork liver figatellu sausage has as much character as the Île de Beauté itself, ‘as simple and rustic in appearance as a Corsican mountain’ . But its powerful taste is not for the faint hearted.

The liver is marinated in wine, pepper and garlic and served dried and raw, or fresh and sautéed, or grilled with chestnut pulenta (polenta) or with lentils, or perhaps best of all, over an open fire so the excess fat drips off, then stuffed into a sliced baguette.

Once made by families after slaughtering their semi-wild free range pigs (porcu nustrale), commercial production has increased in recent years thanks to the import of trotters and other pork parts from mainland France and further afield.

Other names for it are figateddu, figadellu or fitone.