The Gourmet's Guide to Making Sausage Vol. II

Sausages have been made for thousands of years. Every civilization has some history of sausage making including the Africans, Americans (North and South of both the indigenous and immigrant species), Arabians, Asians, Chinese, Egyptians, Europeans, Greeks, Indians, Mesopotamians, Mongolians, Polynesians, Romans, Russians, Scandinavians, the list is endless. Members of every ethnic group that has ever lived on Earth have all tried sausage making and to credit any single person with having invented any particular sausage would be doing an injustice to the long since dead person that actually did. Suffice it to say that sausages were almost certainly being made before recorded history. Sausages were probably the Neanderthal version of present day fast food. Judging by the standards of some fast foods I would imagine that the quality was better In any event it is likely that sausages have been made ever since our ancestors became the leading carnivores on the plains of this planet. I have made sausage as an amateur and professional for over 10 years but I do not claim to have written any of the recipes in this book. In fact I have collected them from every Tom, Dick and Harry I know, and a lot of people I don't, as well as from publications and the Internet. Some of them are exactly as given to me, others have been changed so much from the original version that they would not be recognized by their original authors, some I gleaned from national meat boards and some from companies promoting sales of sausage ingredients, casings or equipment. However, all the recipes have been tried and tested and as far as I am aware, none of my friends or customers have ever suffered any ill effects from consuming any sausage; the recipe for which is included in this collection. During the course of my research I often found that there are several different names for what in effect is one single sausage recipe. Even recipes credited to well known chefs are more often than not a variation on a theme. The recipes included in this book vary from the simple to the fairly complicated but all can be used to prepare really delightful sausages in your own kitchen. To all those people who have taken the time to record recipes which have been handed down from generation to generation and have gone to the trouble of publishing them in one form or another and to those who have collected recipes, recorded their ideas on sausage making and likewise published these in the press, on the internet and in recipe books, I would like to say a very big thank you for making this knowledge available to sausage fans all over the world.