In Europe, chorizo is a fermented, cured, smoked sausage, which may be sliced and eaten without chorizo dishes, or added as an ingredient to add flavor to other dishes. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. A rule of thumb is that long, thin chorizos are sweet, and short chorizos are spicy, although this is not always the case.
Spain produces many other pork specialties, as well, such as lomo embuchado or salchichón, cured and air-dried in a similar way. It is then stuffed into natural casings from pig or lamb and slowly dried over smoke. In the heavily Portuguese counties in the US states of Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, chouriço is often served with little neck clams and white beans. Spanish-American cuisine adds vinegar instead of the white wine usually used in Spain. Valle de Toluca, and is claimed to have originated in the town of Texcalyacac. The area around Toluca specializes in “green” chorizo, made with some combination of tomatillo, cilantro, chili peppers, and garlic.
In Puerto Rico, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, chorizo and longaniza are considered two different types of meat. Puerto Rican chorizo is a smoked, well-seasoned sausage nearly identical to the smoked versions in Spain. In contrast to Spanish chorizo, in the United States the term generally refers to a sausage that is never dried, has a fattier filling, and is very spicy. Creole and Cajun cuisine both feature a variant of chorizo called chaurice, which is frequently used in the Creole dish of red beans and rice. As with its cousin to the west, smoking this variant is an acceptable practice in local cuisine. In Ecuador, many types of sausage have been directly adopted from European or North American cuisine.
