Sausage
This page is about the food; for other uses see Sausage (disambiguation). |
Freshly cooked pork sausages. |
A
sausage consists of ground
meat, animal fat,
herbs and
spices, and possibly other ingredients, generally packed in a casing (traditionally the intestines of the animal, though now often synthetic), and preserved in some way, often by
curing or
smoking.
Sausage making is a very old food production and preservation technique. There is no consensus whether similar products that are not packed in casings, such as
pâté,
meatloaf,
scrapple and
head cheese should be considered sausages. Pieces of sausage—often not including casing—are a popular topping for
pizza in many countries.
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Australian "snags" cooking on a campfire |
Sausage is a natural outcome of efficient
butchery. Sausage-makers put to good use meat and animal parts that are edible and usually nutritious, but not particularly appealing, such as organ meats, blood, and fat, and allow the
preservation of meat that can not be consumed immediately. Hence, sausages are among the oldest of prepared foods.
It is often assumed that sausages were invented by the
Sumerians in what is
Iraq today, around
3000 BC.
Chinese sausage làcháng (臘腸/腊肠), which consisted of goat and lamb meat, was first mentioned in
589 BC. The
Greek poet Homer mentioned a kind of blood sausage in the
Odyssey (book 20, verse 25), and
Epicharmus (ca.
550 BC - ca.
460 BC) wrote a comedy titled
The Sausage. Evidence suggests that sausages were already popular both among the ancient Greeks and Romans.
During the reign of the Roman emperor
Nero, sausages were associated with the
Lupercalia festival. The early Catholic Church outlawed the Lupercalia Festival and made eating sausage a sin. For this reason, the Roman emperor
Constantine banned the eating of sausages. Early in the
10th century, the
Byzantine emperor Leo VI outlawed the production of blood sausages following cases of food poisoning.
Traditionally, sausage casings were made of the intestines of animals. Today, however, natural casings are often replaced by
collagen,
cellulose or even
plastic casings, especially in the case of industrially manufactured sausages. Additionally, luncheon meat (such as
SPAM) and sausage meat are now available without casings in tins and jars.
The basic sausage is that of Pork, Rusk and a herb (Sage is the most common), filled into a casing such as hog intestine. The meat content is dependent upon the maker. English Food Law states it must be at least 75% meat content, but many home recipes contest that good sausage must be 50% lean meat and 50% solid fat.
The word
sausage is derived from
Old French saussiche, from the
Latin word
salsus, meaning
salted. The word
botulism is derived from the Latin word for sausage,
botulus.
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Some of the many varieties of sausages |
Sausages may be classified in any number of ways, for instance by the type of meat and other ingredients they contain, or by their consistency. The most popular classification is probably by type of preparation, but even this suffers from regional differences in opinion. In the English-speaking world, the following distinction between fresh sausages, cooked sausages and dry sausages seems to be more or less accepted:
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Cooked sausages are made with fresh meats and then fully cooked. They are either eaten immediately after cooking or must be refrigerated. Examples include
Braunschweiger and liver sausages.
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Cooked smoked sausages are cooked and then smoked, or smoke-cooked. They are eaten hot or cold, but need to be refrigerated. Examples include
Wieners,
kielbasa and
Mortadella.
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Fresh sausages are made from meats that have not been previously cured. They must be refrigerated and thoroughly cooked before eating. Examples include
Boerewors,
Italian pork sausage and fresh beef sausage.
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Fresh smoked sausages are fresh sausages that are smoked. They should be refrigerated and cooked thoroughly before eating. Examples include
Mettwurst and Romanian sausage.
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Dry sausages are fresh sausages that are dried. They are generally eaten cold and will keep for a long time. Examples include
salami,
Droë wors and
summer sausage.
Other countries, however, use different systems of classification.
Germany, for instance, which boasts more than 1200 types of sausage, distinguishes raw, cooked and pre-cooked sausages.
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Raw sausages are made with raw meat and are not cooked. They are preserved by
lactic fermentation, and may be
dried,
brined or
smoked. Most raw sausages will keep for a long time. Examples include
cervelat,
mettwurst and
salami.
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Cooked sausages may include water and
emulsifiers and are always cooked. They will not keep long. Examples include
Jagdwurst and
Weißwurst.
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Pre-cooked sausages are made with cooked meat, and may include raw organ meat. They may be heated after casing, and will keep only for a few days. Examples include
Saumagen and
Blutwurst.
The US has a particular type called
Pickled sausages, commonly found in gas stations and small roadside delicatessens. These are usually smoked and/or cooked (boiled) sausages of a highly processed
frankfurter (
hot dog) or
kielbasa style plunged into a boiling brine of vinegar, salt, spices (red pepper, paprika...) and often a pink coloring, then jarred. They are available in single blister packs i.e.
Slim Jim meat snacks, or in jars atop the deli cooler. They are shelf stable, and are a frequently offered alternative to beef jerky, beef stick, and kippered beef snacks.
Certain countries classify sausage types according to the region in which the sausage was traditionally produced:
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France:
Montbéliard,
Morteau,
Strasbourg,
Toulouse, …
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Germany:
Frankfurt,
Thuringia,
Nuremberg,
Pomerania, …
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Austria:
Vienna, …
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Slovenia:
Kranjska (klobasa), after the Slovenian name for the province of
Carniola*
Spain:
botifarra catalana,
chorizo riojano, chorizo
gallego, chorizo de
Teror, longaniza de
Aragón, morcilla de
Burgos, morcilla de
Ronda, morcilla
extremeña, morcilla dulce
canaria, salchichón de
Vic,
fuet d'
Olot, sobrasada
mallorquina, botillo de
León, …
Every nation and every region has its characteristic sausages, using meats and other ingredients native to the region and employed in traditional dishes.
English and
Scottish sausages, or
bangers (so named for their tendency to explode during cooking if poorly made), for example, normally have a significant amount of
rusk, or
bread crumbs, and are less meaty than sausages from other countries, although sausages with high meat content can be found. Bangers are also used to make
toad in the hole. They are an essential part of a
full English breakfast, and are usually offered with an
Irish breakfast. According to
Sausagefans.com, in Britain alone there are over 470 different types of sausages. The British sausage was once the butt of a joke on
Yes, Minister, where it was to be renamed by
European Union directive on all labels as the "Emulsified High-Fat Offal Tube".
Sausages can also be modified to use native ingredients. The Mexicans added oregano and the "guajillo" red pepper to the Spanish
chorizo to give it an even hotter spicy touch.
Sausages may be served as
hors d'oeuvre, in a
sandwich, in a bread roll as a
hot dog, wrapped in a
tortilla, or as an ingredient in dishes such as
stews and
casseroles. Sausage without casing is called
sausage meat and can be fried or used as stuffing for poultry, or for wrapping foods like
Scotch eggs. Similarly, sausage meat encased in
puff pastry is called a
sausage roll.
In
Turkey sausage is known as
sosis which is made of beef.
It is worth mentioning that there are currently organisations in a number of UK counties such as Lincolnshire who are seeking European protected status on their sausages so that, rather like Champagne, they can only be made in the appropriate county. So in the future it may be illegal to call a Lincolnshire sausage a Lincolnshire sausage if it is not made in Lincolnshire.
In England,
Saveloy is the snack referring to the sausage while in Hong Kong the
Cervelat Sausage is a snack on its own, too (evenly machine-roasted). Both are bigger than general hot-dog sausages.
Vegetarian sausage
Vegetarian and
vegan sausages are also available in some countries, or can be made from scratch. These may be made from
tofu,
seitan,
nuts,
pulses,
soya protein,
vegetables or any combination of similar ingredients that will hold together during cooking. These sausages, like most meat-replacement products, generally fall into two camps: some are shaped, colored, flavored, etc to replicate the taste and texture of meat as accurately as possible; others rely on spices and vegetables to lend their natural flavour to the product and no attempt is made to imitate meat.
A
2004 analysis published in the journal
Neuroepidemiology determined that consumption of cured sausage during
pregnancy is correlated with an increased risk of childhood
brain tumors.
* "People who enjoy eating sausage and obeying the law should not watch either being made" -
Otto von Bismarck* "Es geht um die Wurst" - German idiom meaning "now or never," literally translates as "it concerns/goes at the sausage."
* "Es ist mir Wurst" - German idiom meaning "same to me," literally translates as "sausage to me" and used as "it's all the... " or "it isn't the..."
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Plate with German Wurst (liver-, blood- and hamsausage) |
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Guide to sausages in the UK*
Sausage glossary*
The Art and Practice of Sausage Making*
All about sausages*
The Sausage Blog (German language)
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Guide to sausage from the world over
