Sausage..
This article is about the prepared meat. For other uses, see Sausage (disambiguation).
Plate with German Wurst (liver, blood and ham sausage)
A sausage is a prepared food, usually made from ground meat, animal fat, salt, and spices (sometimes with other ingredients such as herbs), typically packed in a casing. Sausage making is a traditional food preservation technique.
Traditionally, casings are made of animal intestines though are now often synthetic. Some sausages are cooked during processing, and the casing may be removed after that. Sausages may be preserved by curing, drying in cool air, or smoking. When cooking sausages it is important to ensure they are pricked with a fork or similar implement first in order to prevent their disintegration and to prevent loss of flavour.
History of Sausage..Sausage is an outcome of efficient
butchery. Sausage-makers put to use meat and animal parts that are edible and nutritious, but not particularly appealing -such as scraps, organ meats, blood, and fat- in a form that allows for preservation: typically, salted and stuffed into a tubular casing made from the cleaned intestine of the animal, producing the characteristic cylindrical shape. Hence, sausages,
puddings and
salami are amongst the oldest of prepared foods, whether cooked and eaten immediately or dried to varying degrees. The sausage can also be shaped in a square, such as in Africa the sausage is sometimes shaped like a square hamburger patty.
It is believed that sausages were invented by
Sumerians in what is present day
Iraq, around
3000 BC.[
citation needed]
Chinese sausage làcháng (臘腸/腊肠), which consisted of goat and lamb meat, was first mentioned in
589 BC.
Homer, the
poet of
Ancient Greece, 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, and most likely with the non-literate tribes occupying the larger part of Europe.
Sausage in
Italy has its roots in
Lucania, the actual
Basilicata. Philosophers such as
Cicero and
Martial stated a kind of sausage called "lucanica", actually widespread in
Italy, was introduced by Lucanian slaves during the
Roman empire.
[1] 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.[
citation needed] For this reason, the Roman emperor
Constantine banned the eating of sausages.[
citation needed] Early in the
10th century in the
Byzantine Empire,
Leo VI the Wise outlawed the production of blood sausages following cases of food poisoning.
Traditionally, sausage casings were made of the cleaned intestines (or stomachs in the case of
haggis and other traditional puddings) 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 most basic sausage consists of meat, cut into pieces or ground, and filled into a casing. The meat may be from any animal, but traditionally is pork, beef or veal. The meat/fat ratio is dependent upon the style and producer, but in the United States, fat content is legally limited to a maximum of 30%, 35% or 50%, by weight, depending on the style. The
USDA defines the content for various sausages and generally prohibits fillers and extenders.
[2] Most traditional styles of sausage from Europe and Asia use no bread-based filler and are 100% meat and fat (excluding salt and other flavorings, such as herbs).
[3] In the UK and other countries with English cooking traditions, bread and starch-based fillers account for up to 25% of ingredients. The filler used in many sausages helps them to keep their shape as they are cooked. As the meat contracts in the heat so the filler expands.
The word sausage is derived from
Old French saussiche, from the
Latin word salsus, meaning salted.
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