Home Sausage Making

The Many Sausages M aking your own sausage will put you in a league with some famous people who, even if they didn't actually make their own, contributed to sausage's sometimes inglorious past. Although Homer didn't mention anything about Helen of Troy sending out for a sausage and pepperoni pizza, he did state in the Odyssey that when the Greeks and Trojans weren't fighting they often enjoyed a few plump, well-turned sausages grilled over the campfire. Constantine, on the other hand, banned sausage shortly after he inherited the Roman Empire. It seems that he was embarrassed by the orgies at which sausage was often consumed. His puritanical sensibilities simply wouldn't stand for it. Of course he also banned skinnydipping in the public baths so you know that he was just no fun at all. Our own history might have been different if (so the story goes) Captain John Smith hadn't been so adept at roasting his homemade Polish kielbasa over an open fire. It seems that Pocahontas loved that sausage and so she convinced daddy to spare Captain John's life. And they say the way to a man's h e a r t . . . ? Anyway, with a name like Smith it was no easy feat for kielbasa to come to the rescue. Sausage Varieties To the best of my knowledge no one has ever catalogued all the various kinds of sausage in the world. The attempt would probably be futile since some sausage is made only in a small region and some kinds of sausage don't exist anymore. The American Indians, for instance, made several kinds of dry or cured sausage from meat and berries but they never bothered to write down their recipes. To further complicate matters every sausage maker has his own — very often secret — recipe for a particular kind of sausage. A generic term like "salami" refers to dozens of different sausages, some no more alike than night and day. It is for these reasons that there really is no such thing as "Italian sausage" or "Polish sausage" or any of the other dozens of ethnic varieties sold in most supermarkets. Certain kinds of sausages owe allegiance to various countries or regions but "Italian sausage" may be Italian to one person but pure bologna to another. By definition (mine), sausage is a mixture of ground meat laced with herbs and spices. That doesn't begin to describe the virtually limitless varieties of sausage. All sausages fall into one of two groups. Fresh sausages must be cooked before being eaten. They must be treated like other fresh meat — kept cold when stored. Cured sausages are preserved with certain ingredients such as salt and/or they have been dried to prevent spoilage. (See chapter five for a discussion of methods of preservation.) Cured sausages can be eaten as is or with only enough cooking to heat them through. Fresh Sausages Let's take a look at the various kinds of sausages we'll be making.