• Sausage making is one of the oldest and most widespread forms of food preservation. The Babylonians recorded that King Nebuchadnezzar enjoyed sausages similar to modern salami. The recorded history of sausage making begins in the ninth century B.C. when Homer mentions it in the Odyssey.
• Sausages are considered the earliest convenience foods of civilization.
• Smoking was, and still is one of the most popular methods of preservation.
• The word “sausage” is derived from the Latin salsicia (something salted).
• Sausages are made from the meat, fat, and organs of animals ranging from cows to hogs. At Apple River Fort sausage will primarily be made from hogs.
• Herbs, spices, and sugars are the most often added ingredients to making sausage.
• Sausages can be soft or hard. For example, bologna and salami are considered “hard” sausage while breakfast sausage is considered “soft.”
• The oldest of all pudding sausages is called “haggis” which, since the eighteenth century, has been quite wrongly regarded as a specialty originating in Scotland. The word goes back only to fifteenth-century English, and may have a French origin. The idea may be traced to the earliest days of cooking food. This pudding is made by stuffing a sheep’s stomach with chopped sheep’s offal (variety meats), oatmeal and seasonings. Today haggis is famous in Scotland only and celebrated annually, particularly after the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote an ode to it.
How Do I Make Sausage?
1. Butcher the hog;
2. As the hog is cut up into side meat (bacon) and hams and shoulders, extra pieces of meat and fat is gathered to make sausage;
3. Chop extra pieces of meat and fat into very fine pieces. Working with the fat while it is still somewhat cool makes it easier to chop.
4. The ratio of meat to fat is generally 2 to 1 meaning 2 parts meat to 1 part fat. A leaner sausage can be made if desired, but some fats must be in the sausage;
5. Mix sausage according to recipe (see below);
6. Preparing your casings. As a general rule we will always use a synthetic casing made from collagen. The only preparation for synthetic casings is to soak them in salt water while preparing the sausage. However in 1832, sausage casings would have been made from the small intestines of the hog. For a cleaner intestine, farmers may have only given their hogs water for at least 24 hours prior to butchering. Then you would cut off the small intestine next to the stomach where it connects to the large intestine. Pull away the fat and membranes while the intestine is still warm. Empty it by stripping between two fingers or thumb and finger. Turn the intestine inside out, scrape, and wash it. Once turned, the mucousy coating must be scraped off. Generally, a smooth wooden scraper was used to remove the coating. Once clean, soak the intestines in salt water until ready to use.
7. To stuff the sausage casing. Wash out sausage stuffer. Mix a little warm water into the sausage. Open the casing on one end and place it over the end of the stuffer. Manipulate the entire casing over the tube. Hold onto the end of the casing. Fill the open end 2/3 of the way with sausage. Insert the wooden plunger and firmly begin to push the sausage into the casing. Once it begins and air pops through, you may tie the end of the casing. Continue filling and pushing the sausage through until the casing is nearly to the end. Leave enough room to tie off the end. Tie the end.
8. Storage procedures: At our historic site, the sausages are bagged and stored in the freezer. In 1832, they were eaten fresh or preserved either by cooking or smoking. One method of preservation was to cook the sausage. Once cooked, melted lard was placed in a crock, the cooked sausages were layered in the crock with the lard. The lard would firm up and keep the sausage preserved until the weather grew warm. Another way of preserving the sausage was to smoke it. Pioneers salt cured the hams, shoulders, and sides. The cold weather and salt generally kept the meat from spoiling. In March, the pioneers would head to the smokehouse and start a "green" fire inside, keeping the heat down while encouraging plenty of smoke. The smoke prevented skipper flies (maggots) from burrowing into the meat. Generally, sausage was consumed well before summer weather came.
Some 19th Century "Receipts" (called "Recipes" today)...
To Make Sausage Meat. – Chop two pounds of lean with one of fat port very fine – mix with this meat five teaspoonfuls of salt, seven of powdered sage, two of black pepper, and one of cloves. You can add a little rosemary, if you like it.
Good Housekeeper, 1841.Oxford Sausage – Three pounds of Veal & two pound of Beef Suet three pound of Pork then chop them well together with a handful of Sage chopped fine put in pepper & Salt to your taste take a penny Loaf & put the Crumb in Water to soak then take eight eggs & beat the eggs & bread together roll them as long as your finger & fry them.
Backcountry Housewife (1778-1785), South Carolina.To Make Sausage – Take the tender pieces of fresh pork, chop them exceedingly fine – chop some of the leaf fat, and put them together in the proportion of three pounds of pork to one of fat, season it very high with pepper and salt, add a small quantity of dried sage rubbed to a powder, have the skins nicely prepared, fill them and hang them in a dry place. Sausages are excellent made into cakes and fried, but will not keep so well as in skins.
The Virginia Housewife, 1824.To Make Sausage – Remove the skin, sinews, & etc. from a tender part of fresh pork; chop it very fine, with one-fourth its weight of leaf fat, beat it till it becomes thoroughly intermingled, and one perfect mass. Then season it well with salt, cayenne, and sifted sage; put it away in stone, or earthen jars; and when you wish to make use of it, make it into small round cakes, put over them the yolks of eggs and flour, and fry them brown in lard.
The Kentucky Housewife.Very Fine Sausage – Having removed the skin, & etc. from a nice, tender part of fresh pork, beat it exceedingly fine, with one-fourth its weight of the leaf fat. Prepare some sage leaves, by drying and rubbing them through a sifter, season the meat highly with the sage, salt, cayenne, mace, powdered rosemary, grated nutmeg, and lemon. Work it with your hand till it is very well incorporated, making it a little moist with water. Stuff it into skins, which have been neatly prepared, and soaked in vinegar and water for a few hours; hang them up, and smoke them, and when you make use of them, cut them into links, and stew, fry or broil them. Serve them up on small toast, and pour a few spoonfuls of melted butter around them.
The Kentucky Housewife.Bologna Sausage – Take eight pounds of tender, fresh beef; mix with it two pounds of the tender parts of pork, and two pounds of fresh, hard lumps of suet; chop them fine, and beat them to one perfect mass. Mix with it a small portion of grated bread, and season it with salt, pepper, sifted sage, grated nutmeg and minced onions. Work it very well together, make it a little moist with water, and having some skins neatly prepared, fill them with the sausage. Confine the ends with twine, to prevent the sausage coming out; pierce them with a fork in several places, and boil them slowly for half an hour, then rub them over with sweet oil and a very little cayenne pepper, and hang them up to dry. You may eat them cold, or broil, and serve them on toast. To prepare the skins, take the small entrails from a hog as soon as it is killed, empty them of their contents, wash and scrape them nicely, soak them in water, with a little salt, for forty-eight hours, shifting them once of twice, into fresh water, and lastly, soak them for a few hours in very weak vinegar, and scrape them well.
The Kentucky Housewife.
Find more 1830s recipies by visiting our Distaff Page and clicking on the "Ordinary Life" link.
Apple River Fort State Historic Site.
