P.S.: Re: [Sca-cooks] chorizo

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach me:
>>According to my cookbooks it is different, but they don't go into specifics
>>on the qualities of the Spanish one.  The predominate spices are garlic,
>>paprika and pimento paste.  These pork sausages are smoked for 12 to 24
>>hours.
>>
>>Friends of our family always used to make their own.  They built a smoker in
>>their garage specifically for that purpose.  I can try to get their recipe
>>(of course, everyone has a slightly different variation - my favorite is the
>>one from the older Portuguese store by my parent's house), not sure when
>>I'll get a chance though :-(
>>
>>Keep in mind chourica comes in mild (doce) and spicy (picante).  In caldo
>>verde I prefer the mild one so that it doesn't overpower the more delicate
>>flavors in the soup, but the spicy one is really nice pan fried and served
>>on fresh bread (yum!).
>
>The last time I was in Newport, I encountered a smoked sausage that 
>I seem to recall was chourica, but it was given to me when I 
>specifically asked for linguica. I remember the chourica being 
>pretty similar to krajana, the smoked, moderately garlicky, 
>coarse-ground version of Polska kielbasa (as opposed to siekana, 
>which is the fine-ground --and conceptually fine-- inspiration for 
>the rather-poorly-executed Hillshire Farms Allegedly Polska 
>Kielbasa). It had some paprika or other red pepper in it, but wasn't 
>particularly spicy. It seemed to be another in a fairly generic 
>family of garlicky smoked sausages, which include Hungarian, French, 
>Spanish, Portuguese, South American, and probably North African, 
>versions. Which brings me to this question:
>
>Since I went looking for linguica and came back with chourica (it's 
>a long story, doesn't bear repeating), how much difference is there 
>between them? (I'm not suggesting there's none; I just don't know 
>what it is, and figure someone else here might.)

P.S.: I did a quick web search and at least one company selling 
linguica and chourico by mail-order and online, suggests that 
linguica and chourico are essentially the same (in fact, identical 
except for spice quantity/proportion), but with chourico being hotter 
than linguica. If that's the case, it's possible that what I got was 
actually linguica after all.

A.