Sausages

[DeMeer]

Hi All,
A bit of an odd question but I saw a programme recently that said they ate sausages in the 13th Century can anyone enlighten me? Is this true?

Thanks

[Bad Viking]

I have eaten sausages that tasted like they were made in the 13th Centuary once !

[Mike Garrett]

According to the great guru that is Wikipedia ...

Sausage is a logical outcome of efficient butchery. Traditionally, sausage makers put tissues and organs 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 among the oldest of prepared foods, whether cooked and eaten immediately or dried to varying degrees.

Early humans made the first sausages by stuffing roasted intestines into stomachs.[2] The Greek poet Homer mentioned a kind of blood sausage in the Odyssey, Epicharmus wrote a comedy titled The Sausage, and Aristophanes' play The Knights is about a sausage-vendor who is elected leader. Evidence suggests that sausages were already popular both among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and most likely with the illiterate tribes occupying the larger part of Europe.[2]


German Wurst: liver sausage, blood sausage, and ham sausageThe most famous sausage in ancient Italy was from Lucania (modern Basilicata) and was called lucanica, a name which lives on in a variety of modern sausages in the Mediterranean. During the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, sausages were associated with the Lupercalia festival. Early in the 10th century during the Byzantine Empire, Leo VI the Wise outlawed the production of blood sausages following cases of food poisoning.

So some form of sausage in the 13th sounds likely.

Also - http://www.ideamarketers.com/?articleid=1646618

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/525569/sausage

[Marcus Woodhouse]

Well if the haggis can be regarded as a form of sausage then it dates back to classical Greece and Rome.

[Medicus Matt]

The Romans had lucanica (a southern italian smoked sausage flavoured with cumin, savoury, rue, parsley, bay berries, garum and pine nuts) since at least the 1st century BC.
I've asked Martin to make me some a couple of times and have grown savoury, rue and berry-bearing bay in anticipation.

Rumour has it that the Greeks have been eating sausage for a lot longer.

[kate/bob]

One of my friends has done loads of research into medieval food in the past couple of months, including sausages. She's found quite a few references to sausages in recipes, but they're not fresh, but more salami like. She's also found references to smoking sausuages in chimneys. The references to sausage-meat like meat turn them into meatball type things.

I knew there was a reason I had kept those text messages and no, I don't have a very exciting life!

She's in the process of writing a book for cooking proprely authentic food on a campfire so I'll put up a link when it's done.

[Colin Middleton]

Please do.

Local tradition dates the 'Connisburg Sausage' back, I think to the 14th C in Connisbrough (Donaster). Apparently it was even paraded through the streets!

[DeMeer]

Thanks all for you replies they are useful and very interesting

[gregory23b]

sausage = pudding = meat in a skin sack.

We call them sausages, but they were also called puddings and sausages. Hence black and white puddings.

Made famous by the famous jouster Marx Walter who had three sausages impaled on his helmet, tru dat. (later but v. amusing)

[Karen Larsdatter]

Here's some 14th century English recipes (taken from Forme of Cury):
http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopi ... 2337e31d20

[KeithFarrell]

sausage = pudding = meat in a skin sack.

We call them sausages, but they were also called puddings and sausages. Hence black and white puddings.

Made famous by the famous jouster Marx Walter who had three sausages impaled on his helmet, tru dat. (later but v. amusing)

The Marx Walther turnierbuch is a very interesting manuscript with some very bizarre outfits and decorations. Certainly worth having a look at the online scans here:
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0003/bsb00038795/images/index.html?fip=193.174.98.30&id=00038795&seite=1

Edit: the page where the sausages are worn as a helmet decoration is folio 8r.

[Dave B]

sausage = pudding = meat in a skin sack.

We call them sausages, but they were also called puddings and sausages. Hence black and white puddings.

Made famous by the famous jouster Marx Walter who had three sausages impaled on his helmet, tru dat. (later but v. amusing)

I always thought of sausages as necessarily having a skin, but puddings maybe not? I thought there were some puddings cooked in a muslin or something, but I'm struggling to recall the details.

[Grymm]

The pudding cloth is a 17thC invention (poss late 16thC), before then puddings(inc sausage, sawsage etc) are filled into/wrapped in animal membrane of some sort be it gut, caul or stomach (aka maw, bag or wombe).
You only use the gut for sausages that you are storing, if they are for eating immediatly it's more likely the meat is minced formed into pills and fried(essentially a burger sans nose, ear and ringpiece meat). Gut is a good storage container and you only get so much per beastie so it's mostly(I won't say only) for medium/long term storage or curing/smoking.

[Grymm]

Which reminds me, still got one home made 'pudding of a Nox' (Black pudding) left in the freezer, that's brekkie tomorrow sorted =o)

[Man from Coventry]

The Byzantine Emperor - Leo V - "The Armenian" (775- 820AD) issued an edict against Sausage makers, stating that they should be "severely scourged, smooth shaved & banished from our Kingdom forever". I dont know why.

One of Henry V's quotes albeit 100+ yrs later r than the 13th Century was "War without fire is like sausages without mustard".