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Sausages

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13:19 / 14.02.03

Next they'll be giving horses jelly to play with. And putting ducks to bed under the eiderdown.

13:22 / 14.02.03

Or feeding cattle ground beef. Oh, hang on, haven't they done that already?

13:42 / 14.02.03

In my wretched experience, USAns don't have a clue about sausages. At least, not in the part of the USA where I currently reside. I haven't had a decent sausage in 3 years.

I have it on good authority that the chicken and apple sausage from Costco Wholesale is pretty darn good.

Barring that, I'd check out Wild Oats (health food supermarket) or Whole Foods Market. Both are chains. Whole Foods gives beer samples and has a copious selection of cheeses. I imagine their meats are of equal par (being a mostly-veggie, I don't pay attention).

There's bound to be a German deli *somewhere* near where you are, too. Most sausage consumed in the States is kielbasa or pepperoni, but the German places tend to foray into new and interesting sausage frontiers.

On vegetarian sausage, Morningstar Farms makes a purty good vegetarian Italian sausage, but my favorite has to be the spinach dogs I got from a Vermont hot dog vendor one summer. Deep green, they were. And tasty.

Whisky Priestess

15:57 / 14.02.03

Xoc:
"I like crisp, charred sausage skin and when you cook them in liquid the skins become lambent and plasticised."

Are you sure? Webster's Dictionary Online says -
Main Entry: lam·bent
Pronunciation: 'lam-b&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin lambent-, lambens, present participle of lambere to lick -- more at LAP
Date: 1647
1 : playing lightly on or over a surface : FLICKERING
2 : softly bright or radiant
3 : marked by lightness or brilliance especially of expression

Bloody hell! Maybe that's what the boot is filled with in Repo Man!

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:15 / 14.02.03

Mmmmmmm. saussies....

Another big thumbs up to Linda M sausages, perfect for weekend fry=ups and delish cooked in red wine/bayleaves/garlic and served with mash.

But I do prefer Quorn sausages. Plump and lovely.

And Xoc, will also be hunting down (ha) some of those apricot/feta things.... You on commission, mate?

Put me down for a stool in the McCartney Bar of The House of Saveloy, though. Genius idea.

23:45 / 14.02.03

Whisky Priestess and Haus are the same pedantic person - quod est demonstrandum... Just because I use a word once in an entirely inappropriate context, thinking it means something very different, sheesh, nobody else noticed... And it should mean "stringy and chewy like a casseroled sausage skin" - I think the next edition of Chambers Dictionary will include this definition and then you'll be sorry!

01:19 / 15.02.03

How extraordinary! Do you know that I am reading The Assassin's Cloak, which is a compendium of diary entries. There are different entries for every day of the year, crossing over centuries; every day I read that day's worth, and *this* was in today's batch:

14 February

1980 [Düsseldorf]

We had to take Hans Mayer's car and drive out to the country to a small town to photograph a German butcher. His company is called Herta, it's one of the biggest sausage companies in Germany. He was a cute guy. He had this interesting building. You could see all the employees. He had my Pig on the wall. Junk everywhere. A lot of toys. A lot of stuffed cows, stuffed pigs. Pigs, pigs, pigs all over the place. and there was art. There were funny things hanging from the ceiling. There were water-dripping paintings. He buys a lot of art, he said they sell more sausages that way because the people are very happy. Then he gave us a white smock and white hat. We went through and watched the ladies make the sausages. It was really fun. You could smell the sauerkraut cooking, but they didn't give us any hot dogs there. He had the whole portfolio of Picasso that I did the Picasso print of Paloma in. We looked at that, then we had to look at more pigs and more salamis and more hams and more ham art.

Then we took Polaroids for the portrait and had some tea. And his wife came by. They didn't offer us lunch. Then all of a sudden he asked us if we'd like to try one of his hot dogs. They cooked some up and we had two apiece. They were really good. He said he had to go have lunch back at the lunch room. We had to go without lunch which we thought was really strange. We got in the car and drove to a restuarant in a place called Bottrop.

[This last part has nothing to do with sausages, but it's funny...]

As soon as we came in they told us it was this crazy day where all the women chase the men. They cut off your ties. But since we knew that was happening --we saw these drunken ladies running round-- we took our ties off and hid them in our pockets. But then they got my shirt tail and they cut it off and it was my good shirt and I was so mad. These women were really bullies. We got back in the car and drove back to Hans's gallery. I was so tired, and I was really upset about my shirt.

Andy Warhol

04:00 / 15.02.03

grant, lovable grant, thanks for the tips...

Here are my comments, none of which are intended to qualify my heartfelt and genuine gratitude:

I have it on good authority that the chicken and apple sausage from Costco Wholesale is pretty darn good.

Nothing primarily chicken can be a true sausage, IMHO. Aside from that, we had chickens as pets when I was a child. Soft-hearted person that I am, I would be as likely to eat chicken as I would be to eat a cuddly puppy. Sorry.

Barring that, I'd check out Wild Oats (health food supermarket) or Whole Foods Market. Both are chains. Whole Foods gives beer samples and has a copious selection of cheeses. I imagine their meats are of equal par (being a mostly-veggie, I don't pay attention).

Yes, Wild Oats! Of course! There is one here. I'm sure that is a good place to search for sausages, both meat and veggie.

There's bound to be a German deli *somewhere* near where you are, too. Most sausage consumed in the States is kielbasa or pepperoni, but the German places tend to foray into new and interesting sausage frontiers.

In my experience of so-called German food in this part of the world, it's really just bigger American food. Blah. It's sad, but that's the way it is here.

On vegetarian sausage, Morningstar Farms makes a purty good vegetarian Italian sausage, but my favorite has to be the spinach dogs I got from a Vermont hot dog vendor one summer. Deep green, they were. And tasty.

OK, I'll look for Morningstar Farms. For me, Vermont is a little too far for a hot dog.

04:48 / 15.02.03

A Sausage story...
A few years back my younger cousin read Charlotte's Web. Later that night at diner (we were having sausages) she said "I wonder if Charlotte would be writting "Some Sausage!" right about now. Laughter ensued and good times was had by all.

The Return Of Rothkoid

08:19 / 15.02.03

The single worst thing I've had, though, I must say, in terms of sausages are boiled sausages. They're just wrong. Coming out of water the colour of dead men's skin... just awful.

They make baby Jesus cry.

pointless and uncalled for

08:37 / 15.02.03

For a long time I carried a big fat basket of disdain for the very concept of vegetarian sausages, until my mother, a vegetarian, introduced me to some lovely homemade organic ones that she bought from a local farm. I still have a problem calling them sausages due to the absence of any animal products but to be honest tasty hot tubes of non-sentient organic matter.

However I must object strongly to the idea that McCartney or Quorn make good sausages. This whole crazy notion that you can emulate meat texture and flavour is an evil slur on the good name of the humble, yet magnificent, sausage. Just give up will you. It's not like meat at all, it's like compressed, deep-fried sponge and tuna mixture. I can't undertand this idea that you have to keep trying to eat meat without really eating it either. Vegetables are just as tasty as meat, so stop kidding yourselves.

Sorry about that, I'll leave well alone now.

On the subject of sausages, there is a tremendous shop in Bath that is dedicated to the art of the sausage and make, amongst many wonderous flavours, Thai Chicken.

I reccomend finding it, if you go there.

On a personal note, Lincolnshire sausages should be served with Traklements Tarragon Mustard. Oh yes indeed they should.

Goodness Gracious Meme

19:01 / 16.02.03

Actually, stuff what i said about quorn saussies.

As far as off-the-peg mass market sausages go, you can't beat Cauldron Foods. Having polished some of their Lincolnshire ones with mash this afternoon, can i just say 'Mmmm-mmmm'

08:14 / 17.02.03

Potus - This whole crazy notion that you can emulate meat texture and flavour is an evil slur on the good name of the humble, yet magnificent, sausage.

Well, err, you see Potus, I suspect you've been buying your biology textbooks at the discount store again. Sausages are not actually part of an animal. There is nothing intrinsically meaty about a sausage. It's just a way of preparing food by mashing it up and sticking it in a tube. The fact that in the past people used to mash up meat n' stuff to fill the tube and nowadays you can get ones filled with vege things, is neither here nor there. Imitating actual cuts of meat with vege ingredients is indeed a little odd, but vege sausages are hardly doing that.

Sausages are simply a method of delivering the maximum of salt and fat in an easy to use container. Which is why they are wonderful and people eat them in heaven.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

08:54 / 17.02.03

Xoc Whisky Priestess and Haus are the same pedantic person

Hang on, if Whisky Priestess and Haus are the same, and Haus and Ganesh are the same, that means you're sleeping with Whisky Priestess! What kind of gay man are you?

09:09 / 17.02.03

Good try UnfeasiblyLengthilyNamedFlowers but we all know Whisky Priestess is a ginger fatbeard. Must be true, coz ze told Knodge that.

I do get turned on by people correcting my vocabulary though. Stern grammarians too, slurp...

10:00 / 17.02.03

Back on topic for just a mo too, this is why I left Scotland - to escape the accursed local "square" sausage. You don't even need to be inside a tube to be a sausage:

Horrible stuff. Tastes like grease-flavoured woodchip wallpaper.

Whisky Priestess

14:07 / 17.02.03

It's true, it's all true. I'll know better next time than to expose my secret ginger identity by pursuing my doomed quest for total accuracy at all times. I don't think my alter ago Haus will take kindly to your calling him a fatbeard, though.

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:18 / 17.02.03

Xoc. That looks absolutely horrible. Use it for cavity insulation.

pointless and uncalled for

14:45 / 17.02.03

Hmmmm, well Loomis I also checked an expensive biology book and there was no reference to chops either (lamp or pork).

And may I commend you on clever use of the way back machine but I think you'll find that the word sausage in a modern context will bring forth saliva inducing images of hot tasty meat products. It is in this context that I set forth my claims. As an addendum I did give due warrant to non-meat sausages and merely railed against the unnessecary proliferation of emulated meat (which can be interpreted to mean in all of it's forms above and beyond the limitations of sausage).

A condensement of my point could be that if you plan on sausage, be it meaty or vege, then do it properly.

I also like fish sausages, if you were wondering.

14:53 / 17.02.03

Potus - *where* do you get fish sausages from? I've always thought fish were so under-represented in the whole "oooh look at us we're sausages" foods, in so far as you do get these rather rare and seemingly off combos, but basic fish flavours are simply not there!!

(also Loomis - if you want cold Spanish sausage - like chorizo only much much nicer - there is an excellent spanish shop on portabello road (ladbroke grove end) which does excellnt fare - I suggest the Lomo).

pointless and uncalled for

14:59 / 17.02.03

The waitress-shaggingly exellent Rick Stein, and later Ready, Steady, Cook when I had the flu.

Basic premise is grind desired ingredients to a thinner paste like consistencey and then wrap in foil before a brief period of poaching. Shallow fry to crispy up the outside after removal from foil and then eat with your favourite other stuff to eat with fish.

15:05 / 17.02.03

Thanks for the tip Jub (I'm pretty sure I've seen the place you mean), but unfortunately I no longer eat our little sausagey friends. The thought of them wrinkling up their cute little round sausagey faces (or that could be their tails, I get confused) as they're squashed into cages or led out onto the killing floor, was just too much for me.

17:59 / 17.02.03

There's a sausage shop in the Covered Market which looks pretty decent actually, and I know they do veggie ones (not sure about vegan though) and seem to have a decent variety. It's called 'Orrible Uncle Bob's Cold Pantry' or something like that... oh, and they make raised pies and so on as well. Cold raised pork pie. Game pie. Um.

IMHO can't go wrong with yer actual Cumberland sausage though... PEPPER.

20:35 / 17.02.03

re: Chorizo, you get great ones really cheap from the Aztec Superstore in Kennington. All the people serving are authentic Bolivian, hence none taller than three foot six, and they sit about in huddles behind the counter peering up at South American gangster movies and second guessing the plot. Tesco doesn't give you that.

Obviously, have just been to see City of God and am catching a Latin American-Reservoir Dogs-Trainspotting type vibe here. Mmmmm, chorizo...

10:56 / 18.02.03

Mmmm, chorizo is quite nice. I must say, though, the U.K. really does seem to do a nice sausage. I never knew you could stuff so many things in them! (Hmm, that sounds dirty...)
I like wine and feta stuffed sausages, myself...

11:42 / 24.02.03

Xoc you brilliant man! Finally tracked down those Wicken Fen vege sausages and Ariadne and I put the Cumberland variety to the test yesterday, and they were very nice indeed. We both agreed that you have a nose for a good sausage. My quality of life just went up, and for that I thank you.

14:11 / 24.02.03

And what's more, there are two left for my tea tonight. Yum. Thanks Xoc.

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