Legends of Pleşcoi – from Napoleon to the Serbian greengrocers

Like all truly great things, the Pleşcoi sausages have a legend of their own. Not one, but several. Two of them are worth mentioning, with the specification that no one knows the actual truth.

The first legend tells that the Pleşcoi were merely hand-made mutton sausages, hot and smoked, made in the households on the Buzău valley … Until one day, Napoleon, in his retreat from the disastrous campaign of Russia, is believed to have rested one night in Buzău, in the home of a landowner, who served the emperor what he thought he had best …local plum brandy, „babic” and Pleşcoi sausages. Napoleon loved so much the sausages that he took, for the road home, several kilos of Pleşcoi.

Unfortunately, no matter how flattering such a legend would be, we see ourselves obliged to mention, first of all, that from all the known French guys, Napoleon is famous for … his lack of taste in gastronomy. Second, unfortunately, none of the sources (more or less credible) even mention the possibility that Napoleon could have passed through the territory of the present Romania on his return from Russia, nevertheless through the home of a landowner from Buzău.

The second story, which seems somehow more believable, says that the Pleşcoi sausages recipe belongs to the Serbian greengrocers who settled in the area in the 19th century, and who brought the recipe for the “babic” sausages (for the connoisseur, there is no tasteful “babic” than the one in Buzău). Dissatisfied with the taste of local mutton, which differed a lot from the one back home, the Serbians decided to strongly spice the sausages, to smoke them and dry them to the consistence of a plank of wood, in order to be able to eat them.

No matter which is the real origin, a fact is known for certain: the Pleşcoi sausage is a product unlike any other found on the Romanian territory, with a taste (and shape) identity that cannot be ignored, a relish worthy of the most pretentious gurmet. Probably, the high-life stomachs will shrink at the idea that a smoked really hot mutton sausage could be “pretentious” food.
But surely, the ones for whom a tasteless strict diet is a distant nightmare, know what I mean.
So, I insist, with an impulse: Save Vama Veche, save whatever you want, but don’t forget about the traditional Romanian products, which were brouht by transition poverty or poor industrialization on the brink of extinction!

Save the sausage! Save the Pleşcoi sausage!