The Latin word salsicium meaning prepared by salting introduces a complex subject
The Latin word salsicium, meaning “prepared by salting”, introduces a complex subject. Another one for the banger spotter: the longest sausage ever stretched 35 miles. It’s anyone’s guess how much ketchup that called for.
Apart from changing tastes in flavouring, sausages have changed little since Roman times (though the first recorded mention is in the Greek play Orya, or “The Sausage”, of 500 BC). They pandered perfectly to the Roman love of highly seasoned food that conveniently disguised any “off” flavours. As did the process of smoking them, which, together with the liberal use of pepper, deterred bacteria.
Shrines in what was then Gaul depict the pig at the slaughter and the proceeds thereof – strings of sausages (which didn’t appear in Britain until the 17th century), blood puddings and pigs’ heads. Equally popular were chitterlings, these days replaced by andouilles and mortadella. While the fortunes of sheep and cattle farmers were affected by invasions and the economics of the land, pigs did not need to be farmed, existing as they did in the forest.Not that sausages are made solely with pork. They consist of chopped or minced meat – it could be pork, wild boar, venison, beef, veal, turkey, or lamb in the case of Jewish and Arab sausages.
The Romans also enjoyed horse meat – today, you can still buy horsemeat sausages from old-fashioned horse butchers in France In some cases, sausages are not meat at all. The modern abomination of TVP (textured vegetable protein) performs the same service for the vegetarian as the nicotine patch for the ex-smoker.The mixture is stuffed into skins that are either natural, deriving from cow, hog, lamb or sheep intestines stretched to a tough transparency, or man-made. One recipe lists salt, water, collagen, glycerine and cellulose as the ingredients for making your own casing. But preparing skins is a time-consuming, messy business and there have been many experiments with skinless versions over the centuries.
In the 17th century, potted meat was rolled in egg or flour and fried in lard. The Elizabethans experimented with hollowed-out carrots and cucumbers which, strangely enough, never caught on. Today, China is the biggest exporter of natural sausage casings.So many and various are the types of sausage around the world that it is impossible to narrow them down to one per country. Particular types of sausage have come to be associated with particular areas, towns, or in the case of Britain, counties But there are undeniable national traits.
Dried sausages are common in hot countries, while fresh sausages prevail in northern Europe, where the climate is colder and meat keeps for longer. The Brits will always be associated with the pork banger, which usually consists of around 70 per cent meat, with the remainder being made up of rusk and other flavourings. According to 1984 Meat Products and Spreadable Fish Products Regulations, if a sausage is called “pork” it must have a meat content of not less than 65 per cent, and a lean meat content of at least 50 per cent. The French don’t bother with the namby-pamby bread padding; the juicy Toulouse is nearly 100 per cent meat. Spanish chorizo is as spicy and garlicky as you would expect from a land that prides itself on flamenco and bullfighting. Across another border, the Germans’ frankfurters are as immaculate in appearance as their litter-free streets.British Sausage Appreciation Week ends on Monday. Tastings, competitions and menu specials have raised money for the Cystic Fibrosis Society.