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get your sausages

mw0njm said:
Lloyd.never had a chicken sausage.wonder if you can buy em.
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Yes, at Tesco too!
https://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/tesco-price-comparison/Frozen_Meat/Aishas_Chicken_Sausages_720g.html

Read all about saussiches here , but remember back in grandmother's day, when there weren't food laws to protect us, sausages were (at best) 40% meat, any sort, offcuts, scrapings, the bits that wouldn't sell of the butcher's counter; 40% bread (often stale breadcrumbs); 20% water (to swell the bread and make the sausage bulkier - when fried, some of the water would 'flash' to steam and the pressure of it would burst the sausage skin - hence "bangers"!); and enough herbs and spices to disguise the meat flavour (specially if it was just 'turning'). Butchers were quite adept at their flavouring art, and could sell any old rubbish (plus bread and water) at a higher price than the meat was really worth. When you think an old saying was that you could eat any part of a pig other than the squeak, then you can imagine what went into sausages. A now-departed relative of mine who was a butcher would never eat sausages. "I know what goes in 'em!" he would say!
 
Not a lot changes Lloyd. May be the sausages are prepared in better conditions but they still have lots of filling. As to waste you can say that about the chicken, the only thing not used is its cluck. Before the days of refrigeration meat was often on the turn when sold and cooks were adept at hiding the flavour. I think it was about 1878 that Councils became responsible for issuing and enforcing Licences to kill animals and Abattoirs as we know them came about but meat storage after sale could be hit and miss. Colourings came from chemicals which are banned now. But somehow the Victorians survived. One wonders what they would think of a Tesco or Asda superstore ?
 
Lloyd said:
... 20% water (to swell the bread and make the sausage bulkier - when fried, some of the water would 'flash' to steam and the pressure of it would burst the sausage skin - hence "bangers"!); ...
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I had not seen that as an etymology before but makes perfect sense. Even the OED seems to have missed it:

"4. BANGER - A sausage. slang.
1919 W. H. DOWNING Digger Dialects 10 Banger, a sausage. 1928 Weekly Dispatch 27 May 14 Away they [sc. the boats] go fully laden with men and teanot forgetting bangers (sausages) to cook after bathing. 1949 M. DICKENS Flowers on Grass vii. 182 The chap had bought him tea and bangers and mash. 1959 Times 5 Nov. 13/6 There is..nothing exclusive about the childish use of ‘banger’ for sausage."

Update - Strictly Come Dancing judge crowns region's best sausage as part of British Sausage Week at Birmingham’s Malmaison Hotel Read More https://www.birminghammail.net/news...-s-best-sausage-97319-27596734/#ixzz14Jemii85 Staffordshire Sizzler – a festive sausage created by Denstone Hall Farm Shop in northern Staffordshire.

It is at times like these that I turn to Peter Sellers & Sophia Loren with their 1961 minor hit 'Bangers And Mash' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGFpVN2xwXU
 
I have read or heard that sausages became known as bangers because of the noise made when they burst their skins. Some become so lively in the pan it is a surprise that Elf and Safely do not prescribe safety equipment to be worn. Cooking them slowly in the oven prevents your clothes, skin and hair from being covered fat, oil and water.
How many people do you see who actually read the ingredients list on a package of anything let alone sausages ? I did when shopping for my late mrs, there was so much she could not eat or drink. Now a days I am afraid it is a case of " I fancy that" and in the basket it goes. I must be getting rebellious in my old age. Not enough time to read food packaging, I will leave that to know all politicians .
 
I remember when the twins spent their first day at school and learned this little ditty. Starts off with ten fat sausages sizzling in the pan one went POP and the other went BANG. Carry on down to zero. Jean.
 
Aidan said:
I had not seen that as an etymology before but makes perfect sense. Even the OED seems to have missed it:
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Surprising. You've never had one burst in the frying pan and splash your face with hot fat then?
The Wiki link in my earlier posting includes:
"The designation banger was in use at least as far back as 1919 ... many sausage makers add water to the mixture, making it more likely to explode on heating."

Some may take the meaning too far, though...
 
Not within my well-flushed memory Lloyd. If I ever am allowed sausages these days they are grilled. I tried Sous-vide once but never again (the plastic duck finished it for me)...
 
Arkrite said:
How many people do you see who actually read the ingredients list on a package of anything let alone sausages ? I did when shopping for my late mrs, there was so much she could not eat or drink. Now a days I am afraid it is a case of " I fancy that" and in the basket it goes. I must be getting rebellious in my old age. Not enough time to read food packaging, I will leave that to know all politicians .
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I think you can be confident in the fact that if it tastes good, it's bad for you. Healthy food is at best bland unless 'flavoured' by added ingredients, and as for "Quorn" (which is made nowhere near the place it is named after, but I suppose 'Marlow' or 'Stokesley' don't have the same marketing appeal), well once I saw that it was made from the soil mould Fusarium venenatum as well as tasting awful, I haven't bothered with it since.

As for politicians 'knowing what's best for us', I don't think we need to venture far down that road.
 
This is what I call art (and I know what I like) and with a worthy purpose:-

British performance artist Mark McGowan performs his artwork entitled ‘Sausage, Chips and Beans’ while sitting in a bath of baked beans with sausages strapped to his head and two chips stuck up his nose in support of the traditional fried breakfast which he views as an important part of British culture. https://www.life.com/image/2727822
 
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Somebody must like all these products because they are all continuously produced, purchased and eaten.
Bowketts do sell some very nice variations of sausage and we do use them for some cuts of meat as well.
There is a small butchers shop on the Stourbridge Rd less than a mile out of Halesowen who makes and sells all varieties and their chicken sausage is all meat and virtually fat-free, very tasty too.
Has anyone tried the hot chillie ones?.
 
For anyone in Tamworth, the sausages at the new(ish) pork butchers on Lower Gungate, where Claridges used to be are beatiful - can't remember what the shop is called, but they have an offer at the minute for free liver if you spend more than 2.50 and that was lovely too! They also sell beef which mom and dad give the thumbs up to
Sue
 
Will try to find the shop when we next visit Dennis. I am beginning to enjoy sausages again after some of them have been very dull and uninteresting. Our farm butchers sausages vary so much and I guess it is who makes them on the day?,. Jean.
 
I once spent some months, in 1980, helping a butcher who was a friend. Part of my tasks (simple ones of course) were making burgers and sausages. Interesting work and his recipe must have been good as they sold quite well.

Amongst the sausages that I have enjoyed in the past were those which arrived, packed in lard, in tins during WW2. I believe we own thanks to the United States for them. It is a shame they are still not available here. The other sausages, only available in recent times in Supermarkets, are those made in Lincolnshire and the Fens. Whilst I like them my better half does not so they are rarely on the menu.
 
Alan I am afraid we too do not share the same taste in quite a few different foods so I tend to cook mine when the grandchildren come round. Jean.
 
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