Keisha Shakespeare-Blackmore, Staff Reporter
The stuffer, as the name suggests, stuffs the sausage emulsion into a casing, making links of sausages that will be hung on a rack in preparation for transport to the smoke house. - RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Whether grilled, fried, barbecued or boiled, sausages are delicious. For some, sausages are a breakfast staple while for others, they are a snack item. Most individuals just enjoy gobbling down a few without thinking what they are eating or where they came from. Food explored the world of sausages on a tour of Old MacDonald Farms Ltd., a sausage factory located in Sandy Bay, Clarendon.
THE SAUSAGE is a popular item in a typical Jamaican breakfast. It is easy and quick to prepare. The word sausage originally comes from the Latin word salsus that means salted or preserved. In olden days, people did not have refrigerators to preserve their meat and so making sausage was a way of overcoming this problem.
Sausage is said to be prepared or processed from chopped or ground meat, poultry, or even fish. It is usually made from the scraps that may come from any part of the animal's carcass, including blood, organ meats, and fat. Usually, sausages are seasoned for their unique flavours. Some use grains or breadcrumbs to change the texture and add their own touch. As for the casing, traditionally, they were made of the intestines of animals. Today, however, natural casings are often replaced by collagen, cellulose or even plastic, especially in the case of industrially-manufactured sausages. Additionally, luncheon meat (such as spam) and sausage meat are now available without casings in tins and jars.
NOT A NEW INVENTION
Some individuals may believe that the sausage is a new invention, but people have been making and eating them at least since the 9th century BC, when it was mentioned in Homer's Odyssey. Also, it has been assumed that sausages were invented by the Sumerians (today Iraq) around 3000 BC. Plus, there is evidence that sausages were already popular both among the ancient Greeks and Romans during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero. Then, sausages were associated with the Lupercalia festival. The early Catholic Church outlawed the Lupercalia Festival and made eating sausage a sin. For this reason, the Roman emperor Constantine banned the eating of sausages.
Though we are not sure if and when the ban was lifted, it is quite popular today. There are classifications of sausages such as cooked, smoked, pre-cooked, fresh, fresh smoked, raw, and dry. The different classifications are mostly influenced by the availability of ingredients as well as the climate. Some parts of the world with periods of cold climate, such as northern Europe, were able to keep their fresh sausage without refrigeration during the cold months. They also developed a process of smoking the sausage to help preserve the meat during the warmer months.
The hotter climates in the south of Europe developed dry sausage which did not need refrigeration at all. People living in particular areas developed their own types of sausages and that sausage became associated with the area. For example Bologna originated in the town of Bologna in Northern Italy; Lyons sausage came from Lyons in France, and Berliner sausage from Berlin in Germany.
SOURCE
www.kroger.com/hn/Food_Food/sausage
www.3men.com; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausage
