Letter From America: What's In Your Food?
...Here in the USA it is not possible to buy sausage that is anything like it ought to be. The fault lies with the descendants of Europeans whose forbears brought with them their odd concoctions that rivalled the plain no-nonsense English sausages: beef or pork, and nothing fancy. Sausages here have to be highly flavoured. What’s wrong with tasting beef in a beef sausage, or pork in a pork chipolata? But the choice that lies before us is either spicy this, hardwood smoked that, and herbed who-knows-what? They are all likely to have mixtures of beef, pork, chicken, and what-the-heck-was-that! in them...
Ronnie Bray considers the British sausage - and the horrors of its Trans-Atlantic cousin.
There is a lot to be said for knowing what you put in your mouth at mealtimes. When dining out, it was once a habit with me to ask my host, "What is this?" if the offering was in any way unusual. These days I simply tuck in philosophically on the premise that if they are eating it, then it probably won’t do me any harm.
I had haggis once, during a visit to Scotland to see old friends that coincided with Burn’s night, when the haggis is celebrated and feted. Not quite knowing what to expect, I found it somewhat insipid, although the entry of the thing on a silver charger carried by a man in full Highland regalia accompanied by twa pipers, and a bevy of forlorn maidens wearing long kirtles bedecked with yards of their favourite tartans, who looked longingly at the handsome young men’s kilted legs. I almost wished that I were wearing the kilt, for my legs were tours de force. Less so now, but in those days, ah!
The whole thing was done amidst shouts of excitements, and sighs of enchantment. It was truly a very Scottish affair. After tasting the haggis I mentally complimented them for making the best of a bad situation. The ‘neaps and tatties were fine, but though the haggis wasn’t bad, I would not make a short walk to visit it again.
Here in the USA it is not possible to buy sausage that is anything like it ought to be. The fault lies with the descendants of Europeans whose forbears brought with them their odd concoctions that rivalled the plain no-nonsense English sausages: beef or pork, and nothing fancy. Sausages here have to be highly flavoured. What’s wrong with tasting beef in a beef sausage, or pork in a pork chipolata? But the choice that lies before us is either spicy this, hardwood smoked that, and herbed who-knows-what? They are all likely to have mixtures of beef, pork, chicken, and what-the-heck-was-that! in them.
My idea of a sausage is something tubular, the colour of French polished dark mahogany, and brittle all the way through. It should taste beefy if it is a beef sausage, and porky if it is a pork sausage. Sadly, I have found no place where I can obtain one of the major ingredients for bangers and mash.
Yet with all the longing and despair particular to a man marooned on the moon with no hope of rescue, I inspect the offerings in the meat section of my local supermarket hoping that one day I shall find sausage pure and simple.
A couple of days ago, I came across a newcomer to the sausage section, and my hopes soared, but sanguinity has a short self life.. The long fingers of stuff looked as if they might cook up a treat, and the label proclaimed ‘BEEF SAUSAGES." When I read the ingredients, though, my hearts sank into my boots and I don’t know if I can coax it back up again.
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Gentle reader, if you are about to have your repast, I suggest that you read no further until a good hour after you have ingested your comestibles, for fear that what you are about to discover might upset your tummy if it is at all sensitive.
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That done, I now proceed to reveal the contents of these articles; I hesitate to call them beef sausages as their makers claim them to be. But judge for yourself.
Ingredients: Lymph nodes; Salivary glands; Cheek, Tongue. I went to Spring Grove School for more than ten years, and the most important thing I learned was that the quickest way home was across the Rifle Fields. I didn’t need teaching what a beef sausage was, but I am sure it wasn’t minced offal. The label read: Beef Sausage Meat.
I suppose that, as these were little bits of cow and ox, it wasn’t altogether misleading. Except, that is, to someone who was raised on the official Beef Sausage Standard to expect a higher degree of ingredient. Using their kind of thinking, it is possible to grind up their hooves and horns and mix them with a little arrowroot and suet and call that Beef Sausage.
I have nothing against cows and oxen, but there are some parts of them that I choose not to eat, and this ‘sausage’ maker had included almost all of them. I will enjoy tripe, but some bits should never be mentioned in connection with food, and salivary glands and lymph nodes rank high among them together with other bits such as pancreasusses and er, … other parts.
As Shakespeare’s Peregrine said, "'It's a wise child that knows it's own father... but wiser yet the father who knows his own child,'" to which I am forced by circumstance to add, "And a yet wiser man that knows what’s in his sausage!"
© 2007 – Ronnie Bray
Other stories at:
http://www.2theheart.com/author_ronnie_bray
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/voices/011024summer.html
