Another winter, another sausage season.

Come the cold weather, the streets are strung with countless strings of wind-drying sausage. Some will be hung from trees...

…others from bamboo poles...

…anywhere will do actually.

Sichuanese sausages are usually served as a cold appetizer, sliced into slanted rounds. They are a little like French sausisson – richly oily, with a chewy, meaty texture. Their name in Chinese, xiangcheng, is rather poetic, loosely translated as ‘fragrant lengths’, and they are a common feature on winter dinner tables.

Last year, experiencing a sudden craving for Western food, I begged my local butcher to sell me a sausage before it was properly dried. Though he resisted, I eventually got my sausage, fried it and ate it in a sandwich with ketchup. This year though, I will eat sausages as the Sichuanese do, served simply with a dip of ground chillis – great for when I’m feeling too lazy to cook.

Sausages hung from the eaves of a traditional wooden house in Tiefo Ancient Town, East Sichuan.

Sausages hung beside the furnace of a blacksmith’s workshop, also in Tiefo.