Wales Focus: dragon sausages?
Are you confused when your Brakes delivery of cottage pie doesn't have a thatched roof poking through the mashed potato topping? Baffled when your farmhouse sausages arrive containing no remnants of agricultural outbuilding?
Well, you could have had a problem with Welsh Dragon Sausages, according to trading standards. Its officers ordered a Welsh smoked meat producer and local pub grub provider to change the name on the product's label to stop confusion over its main ingredient.
Jonathan Carthew, head of Black Mountain Smokery in Crickhowell, Powys, labels the move an example of "the nanny state at its worst".
"I don't think any of our customers actually believe that we use dragon meat in our sausages," he says.
Nevertheless, Powys Council's trading standards department told him, following a spot check on the pork product in September last year, that they did not want vegetarians to buy the sausages, mistakenly thinking they were meat-free.
It sent a letter to the firm which read: "The public analyst has stated that the name Welsh Dragon Sausage is not sufficiently precise to inform a purchaser of the true nature of the food."
Black Mountain Smokery supplies a range of products to pubs that also includes smoked salmon, smoked chicken and other smoked meats.
The sausages are made from pork, leek and chilli. The company smokes the sausages after sourcing them from its local butcher, Cashell and Son, which also received the trading standards warning letter.
More than 2,000 of the sausages - now wordily rebranded Smoked Welsh Dragon Pork Sausages - are sent out by Black Mountains Smokery each year, including many to pubs both locally and nationwide.
Jonathan, and the Welsh pubs he supplies, believe the name change has damaged the product's Welsh appeal. "We use the word 'dragon' because it is synonymous with Wales and because of the heat with the chilli. To add the word pork means it loses its marketing appeal," he says.
He adds that he believes his company has been targeted as a smaller producer without the legal means that bigger companies have to fight back against decisions. "It's easier for them to pick on a family business than one of the big boys," he says. "They have ticked a box just so they can say they have caught someone out."
Many of Black Mountain Smokery's products, including smoked chicken and salmon as well as the sausages, can be found on the menu at the Hardwick pub in Abergavenny, South Wales. Licensee Stephen Terry described the council's move as "incredibly anal".
"For someone with an IQ of an aphid, it may be a bit confusing about whether there is dragon in the sausages. For those of us who have evolved to walk and talk this is a ridiculous measure.
"To call it Welsh Dragon is great as a link to Welsh heritage. This doesn't help and is a real shame because the name enhanced the product."
Jonathan was told that trading standards would continue to monitor the sausages. However, he says he has had no correspondence with them in 2007.
Dragons would rank highly on a list of Welsh icons. The mythical, scaly beast was slain in this instance though, with trading standards officers proving that the pen (pusher) is mightier than the sword.
