Sausage

History

Sausage making arose from efficient butchery, as salt was used to preserve scraps, organ meats, blood, and fat, which were then stuffed into cleaned animal intestines. An Akkadian cuneiform tablet records a dish of intestine casings filled with forcemeat. The Greek poet Homer mentioned blood sausage in the Odyssey, and playwrights Epicharmus and Aristophanes referenced sausages in their works. Sausages were popular among ancient Greeks, Romans, and European tribes.

In ancient Italy, the sausage from Lucania was called lucanica. Byzantine emperor Leo VI the Wise outlawed blood sausages in the 10th century due to food poisoning. A Chinese sausage type, lap cheong, dates from the Northern and Southern dynasties (420–589) and has a long shelf life due to high lactobacilli content.

Ingredients

A sausage consists of meat cut or ground, mixed with other ingredients, and filled into a casing. Common additions include starch fillers like breadcrumbs or grains, seasonings, and sometimes items such as apple and leek. Meat typically comes from pork, beef, veal, or poultry, with the lean-to-fat ratio varying by style. Meat content labelled may exceed 100% if drying reduces water weight.

In the United States, regulations limit fat content to between 30% and 50% depending on the type, and some sausages may contain binders or extenders. In the United Kingdom, sausages often include up to 30% bread or starch fillers, which help maintain shape during cooking. Low-cost industrial sausages may contain mechanically recovered meat and rusk, while premium varieties use only choice cuts. In Britain, past labeling allowed fat, connective tissue, and MRM to be called meat, but now such ingredients must be specified, and up to 10% water can be added without labeling.

National varieties

Mutura is a Kenyan sausage made with goat and cow meat, tripe, cooked animal blood, and spices, commonly eaten as street food. Belutak, a traditional Bruneian beef sausage, consists of minced beef and tallow marinated with garlic, salt, chillies, and spices, stuffed into cow or buffalo small intestines, then fermented through dehydration; it is often served with ambuyat. Harbin in northern China produces hóng cháng, a European-style smoked sausage similar to Lithuanian and Polish varieties, first made in 1909 at a Russian-capitalized factory.

Lap cheong are dried pork sausages that resemble pepperoni but are sweeter; in southwestern China, sausages are flavored with salt, red pepper, and wild pepper, and cured by smoking and air drying. Lao sausages include sai ua and sai gork; sai ua originated in Luang Prabang, the ancient royal capital of the Lan Xang kingdom, and a recipe for sai ua moo appears in writings by Phia Sing, the king's personal chef. These sausages are popular among Lao people in Laos and abroad.

Vegetarian versions

Vegetarian and vegan sausages are available commercially or can be made at home. An early recipe was published in 1898 by Florence Nicholson in The Vegetarian.

These sausages may use tofu, seitan, nuts, pulses, mycoprotein, soya protein, vegetables, or similar ingredients. Some are designed to replicate meat in taste and texture, while others, like the Glamorgan sausage, rely on natural vegetable and spice flavors. The soya sausage, first known as Kölner Wurst, was invented in Germany in 1916 by later Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

Did You Know?

• The word sausage first appeared in English in the mid-15th century as sawsyge, from Old North French saussiche.
• The International Agency for Research on Cancer states that processed meat causes colorectal cancer.