the facts on soupy

During Thanksgiving, my parents brought some soupy from Westerly, Rhode Island. Soupy, or sopressata, is a rustic, usually home-made, sausage that is a local specialty in southern Rhode Island and southeatern Connecticut. It is made from pork, salt, paprika, black pepper, and red pepper and is air cured for four-to-twelve weeks. Here’s a great description from Dipper’s Packing Company in Westerly:

“SOUPY”
Westerly, RI and the surrounding areas are the only places that it is called “SOUPY” … The residents here consider the town of Westerly to be the [“SOUPY”] capitol of the country, each year in our small town there are tens of thousands of pounds of this flavorful sausage made by individuals in their own homes. This dry cured sausage is a byproduct of Italians from the region of Cosenza, in Calabria, Italy, it is a small town in southern Italy, and Westerly RI is made up largely of descendants from this region of Italy and to this day they carry on the tradition of their forefathers in the making of Bread, Wine, Sopressata and Cheeses. If you ever have the opportunity to visit Westerly and someone offers you a taste of their Sopressata try it, you will be glad you did. Everyone in town that makes Sopressata will tell you the same thing that theirs is the very best!

Growing up in Stonington, Connecticut next door to Westerly, I had always heard a lot about soupy during the soupy-making season and had assumed it was a universal Italian-American happening. I didn’t know this was a regional specialty.

My folks brought two soupy sausages from the Westerly Packing Co. – one was extra-spicey and the other regularly spiced. Both were delicious and made a wonderful snack with cheese, olives, and sparkling white Italian wine.

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