A sausage is a food usually made from ground meat (normally pork or beef), mixed with salt, herbs, and other spices, although vegetarian sausages are available. The word sausage is derived from Old French saussiche, from the Latin word salsus, meaning salted.[1]
Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made from intestine, but sometimes synthetic. Some sausages are cooked during processing and the casing may be removed afterwards.
Sausage making is a traditional food preservation technique. Sausages may be preserved by curing, drying, or smoking.
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Sausage is a logical outcome of efficient butchery. Traditionally, sausage makers put to use tissues and organs which are edible and nutritious, but not particularly appealing - such as scraps, organ meats, blood, and fat - in a form that allows for preservation: typically, salted and stuffed into a tubular casing made from the cleaned intestine of the animal, producing the characteristic cylindrical shape. Hence, sausages, puddings, and salami are among the oldest of prepared foods, whether cooked and eaten immediately or dried to varying degrees.
Early humans made the first sausages by stuffing roasted intestines into stomachs.[2] The Greek poet Homer mentioned a kind of blood sausage in the Odyssey, Epicharmus wrote a comedy titled The Sausage, and Aristophanes' play The Knights is about a sausage-vendor who is elected leader. Evidence suggests that sausages were already popular both among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and most likely with the illiterate tribes occupying the larger part of Europe.[2]
The most famous sausage in ancient Italy was from Lucania (modern Basilicata) and was called lucanica, a name which lives on in a variety of modern sausages in the Mediterranean. During the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, sausages were associated with the Lupercalia festival. Early in the 10th century during the Byzantine Empire, Leo VI the Wise outlawed the production of blood sausages following cases of food poisoning.
Traditionally, sausage casings were made of the cleaned intestines, or stomachs in the case of haggis and other traditional puddings. Today, however, natural casings are often replaced by collagen, cellulose, or even plastic casings, especially in the case of industrially manufactured sausages. Some forms of sausage, such as sliced sausage, are prepared without a casing. Additionally, luncheon meat and sausage meat are now available without casings in tin cans and jars.
The most basic sausage consists of meat, cut into pieces or ground, and filled into a casing. The meat may be from any animal, but traditionally is pork, beef, or veal. The meat to fat ratio is dependent upon the style and producer, but in the United States, fat content is legally limited to a maximum of 30%, 35% or 50%, by weight, depending on the style. The United States Department of Agriculture defines the content for various sausages and generally prohibits fillers and extenders.[3] Most traditional styles of sausage from Europe and Asia use no bread-based filler and are 100% meat and fat excluding flavorings.[4] In the UK and other countries with English cuisine traditions, bread and starch-based fillers account for up to 25% of ingredients. The filler used in many sausages helps them to keep their shape as they are cooked. As the meat contracts in the heat, the filler expands and absorbs the moisture lost from the meat.
Sausages classification is subject to regional differences of opinion. Various metrics such as types of ingredients, consistency, and preparation are used. In the English-speaking world, the following distinction between fresh, cooked, and dry sausages seems to be more or less accepted:
The distinct flavor of some sausages is due to fermentation by Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, or Micrococcus (added as starter cultures) or natural flora during curing.
Other countries, however, use different systems of classification. Germany, for instance, which boasts more than 1200 types of sausage, distinguishes raw, cooked and precooked sausages.
In Italy, the basic distinctions are:
The United States has a particular type called pickled sausages, commonly found in gas stations and small roadside delicatessens. These are usually smoked or boiled sausages of a highly processed hot dog or kielbasa style plunged into a boiling brine of vinegar, salt, spices, and often a pink coloring, then canned in Mason jars. They are available in single blister packs or sold out of a jar. They are shelf stable, and they are a frequently offered alternative to beef jerky, Slim Jims, and other kippered snacks.
Certain countries classify sausage types according to the region in which the sausage was traditionally produced:
Many nations and regions have their own characteristic sausages, using meats and other ingredients native to the region and employed in traditional dishes.
In the UK and Ireland, sausages are a very popular and common feature of the national diet and popular culture.
British and Irish sausages are normally made from raw pork or beef mixed with a variety of herbs and spices and cereals, many recipes of which are traditionally associated with particular regions (for example Cumberland sausages). They normally contain a certain amount of rusk, or bread-rusk, and are traditionally cooked by frying, grilling or roasting prior to eating.
Due to their habit of often exploding due to shrinkage of the tight skin during cooking, they are commonly referred to as bangers, particularly when served with the most common accompaniment of mashed potatoes to form a bi-national dish known as bangers and mash. (The designation banger was in use at least as far back as 1919 and is often said to have been popularized in World War II, when scarcity of meat led many sausage makers to add water to the mixture, making it more likely to explode on heating.)
Due to health concerns over the quality of the meat contained in many commercially produced sausages (heightened by the BSE crisis in the 1990s) there has been a marked improvement in the quality of meat content in commonly available British sausages with a return to the artisanal production of high quality traditional recipes, which had previously been in decline. However many of the cheaper sausages available use mechanically recovered meat or meat slurry.
There are various laws concerning the meat content of sausages in the UK. The minimum meat content to be labelled Pork Sausages is 42% (30% for other types of meat sausages), although to be classed as meat, the Pork can contain 30% fat and 25% connective tissue. Often the cheapest supermarket pork sausages do not have the necessary meat content to be described as Pork Sausages and are simply labelled 'Sausages'. These typically contain MRM which under EU law can no longer be described as meat.[5][6]
There are currently organisations in a number of UK counties, such as Lincolnshire, which are seeking European Protected designation of origin (PDO) for their sausages so that they can be made only in the appropriate region and to an attested recipe and quality.[7]
Famously, they are an essential component of a full English or Irish breakfast. In the UK alone, there are believed to be over 470 different types of sausages;[8] some made to traditional regional recipes such as those from Cumberland or Lincolnshire, and increasingly to modern recipes which combine fruit such as apples or apricots with the meat, or are influenced by other European styles such as the Toulouse or Chorizo.
A popular and widespread snack is the sausage roll made from sausage-meat rolled in puff pastry; they are sold from most bakeries and often made in the home.
They may also be baked in a Yorkshire pudding batter to create "toad in the hole", often served with gravy and onions.
In many areas, "sausage meat" for frying and stuffing into poultry and meat is sold as slices cut from an oblong block of pressed meat without casing: in Scotland this is known as Lorne Sausage or often sliced sausage or square sausage, while the usual form is sometimes called sausage links. Lorne Sausage is very popular in and around Glasgow. It is usually grilled, though frying is not unusual.
Battered sausage, consisting of a sausage dipped in batter, and fried, is sold throughout Britain from Fish and Chip shops. In England, Saveloy is a type of pre-cooked sausage, larger than a typical hot-dog which is served hot. A saveloy skin was traditionally colored with bismarck-brown dye giving saveloy a distinctive bright red color.
A thin variety of sausage, known as the chipolata is often wrapped in bacon and served alongside roast turkey at Christmas time and are known as Pigs in a Blanket or "Pigs in Blankets". They are also served cold at children's parties throughout the year.
As in mainland Europe, regional types of sausage often overlap with puddings such as the black pudding, white pudding, Hog's pudding and haggis.
Kulen is a type of flavoured sausage made of minced pork that is traditionally produced in Croatia (Slavonia) and Serbia (Vojvodina), and its designation of origin has been protected. The meat is low-fat, rather brittle and dense, and the flavor is spicy. The red paprika gives it aroma and color, and garlic adds spice. The original kulen recipe does not contain black pepper because its hot flavor comes from hot red paprika.
Other types of sausages in Serbia include Sremska, Požarevačka, and Sudžuk.
Saucisson is perhaps one of the most popularized forms of dried sausage in France, with many different variations from region to region. Usually saucisson contains pork, cured with a mixture of salt, wine and/or spirits. Regional varieties sometimes contain more unorthodox ingredients such as nuts and fruits.
Germany is known for its broad variety and long tradition of preparing sausages. German sausages include; Würste Frankfurters/Wieners, Bratwürste, Rindswürste, Knackwürste, and Bockwürste.
Hungarian sausages, when smoked and cured, are called kolbász - different types are often distinguished by their typical regions, e.g. "Gyulai" and "Csabai" sausage. As no collective word for "sausage" in the English sense exists in Hungarian, local salamis (see e.g. winter salami) and boiled sausages "hurka" are often not considered when listing regional sausage varieties. The most common boiled sausages are Rice Liver Sausage ("Májas Hurka") and Blood Sausage ("Véres Hurka"). In the first case, the main ingredient is liver, mixed with rice stuffing. In the latter, the blood is mixed with rice, or pieces of bread rolls. Spices, pepper, salt and marjoram are added.
Italian sausages (salsiccia - pl. "salsicce") are often made of pure pork. Sometimes they may contain beef. Fennel seeds and chilli are generally used as the primary spice in the South of Italy, black pepper and garlic in the center and North.
Macedonian sausages (kolbas, lukanec) are made from fried pork, onions, and leeks, with herbs and spices.
Maltese sausage (Maltese: Zalzett tal-Malti) is made of pork, sea salt, black peppercorns, coriander seeds and parsley. It is short and thick in shape and can be eaten grilled, fried, stewed, steamed or even raw when freshly made. A barbecue variety is similar to the original but with a thinner skin and less salt.
Dutch cuisine is not known for its abundant use of sausages in its traditional dishes. Nevertheless the Dutch have a number of sausage varieties, such as the rookworst (smoked sausage) and Slagers worst (lit. Butchers Meat or sausage) mostly found at the specialist butcher shops and still made by hand and spiced following traditionally family recipes. Another common variety in the Netherlands is the runderworst which is made from beef and the dried sausage known as metworst or droge worst. The Dutch braadworst's name might suggest it being a variant of the bratwurst, but this is not the case and it is closely related to the well known Afrikaner Boerewors.
Nordic sausages (Danish: pølse, Estonian: "vorst", Norwegian: pølsa/pølse/pylsa/korv/kurv, Icelandic: bjúga/pylsa/grjúpán/sperðill, Swedish: korv) are usually made of 60-80% very finely ground pork, very sparsely spiced with pepper, nutmeg, allspice or similar sweet spices (ground mustard seed, onion and sugar may also be added). Water, lard, rind, potato starch flour and soy or milk protein are often added for binding and filling. In southern Norway, grill and wiener sausages are often wrapped in a potato lompe, a kind of lefse.
Virtually all sausages will be industrially precooked and either fried or warmed in hot water by the consumer or at the hot dog stand. Since hot dog stands are ubiquitous in Denmark, some people regard pølser, one of the national dishes, perhaps along with medisterpølse, a fried, finely ground pork and bacon sausage. The most noticeable aspect of Danish boiled sausages (never the fried ones) is that the cover often contains a traditional bright-red dye. They are also called wienerpølser and legend has it they originate from Vienna where it was once ordered that day-old sausages be dyed as a means of warning. The Swedish falukorv is a similarly red-dyed sausage, but about 5 cm thick, usually baked in the oven coated in mustard or cut in slices and fried. Unlike ordinary sausages it is a typical home dish, not sold at hot dog stands. Other Swedish sausages include prinskorv, fläskkorv, and isterband; all of these, in addition to falukorv, are often accompanied by potato mash or rotmos (a root vegetable mash) rather than bread. In Estonia, "suitsuvorst" (smoked sausages), such as pork, moose, boar and deer, are traditional. In Iceland, lamb may be added to sausages, giving them a distinct taste. Horse sausage and mutton sausage are also traditional foods in Iceland, although their popularity is waning. Liver sausage, which has been compared to haggis, and blood sausage are also a common foodstuff in Iceland
Finnish makkara is typically similar in appearance to Polish sausages or bratwursts, but have a very different taste and texture. Nakki is a tinier edition of makkara. There is a variety of different nakkis varying almost as much as different types of makkara. Closest relative to nakki is the thin knackwurst.
Most makkara has very little spice and is therefore frequently eaten with mustard, ketchup, or other table condiments without a bun. Makkara is usually grilled, roasted over coals or open fire, steamed (called höyrymakkara) or cooked on sauna heating stones. Siskonmakkara, a finely ground light-colored sausage is usually encountered in the form of soup, siskonmakkarakeitto.
One Finnish variety is mustamakkara, lit. black sausage. Mustamakkara is prepared with blood and it is a specialty of Tampere. It is similar to the Scottish black pudding.
When a steak made out of thick (diameter about 10 cm) makkara is prepared inside a sliced, fried bun with cucumber salad and other fillings, it becomes a porilainen after the town of Pori.
Pickled makkara intended to be consumed as slices is called kestomakkara. This class includes various mettwurst, salami and Balkanesque styles. The most popular kestomakkara in Finland is meetvursti (etymologically this word comes from mettwurst), which contains finely ground full meat, ground fat and various spices. It is not unlike salami, but usually thicker and less salty. Meetvursti used to additionally contain horse meat, but only a few brands contain it anymore, mostly due to the high cost of production. There is also makkara and meetvursti with game, like deer, moose or reindeer meat. Even a lohimakkara, i.e., salmon sausage, exists.
In Finland there are b- and a-classes of BBQ Sausages like Kabanossi, Camping and HK Sininen Lenkki, Blue Loop.
In general, there is no taboo against eating horse meat in Nordic countries, but the popularity has decreased with decreasing availability of suitable horse meat.
Polish sausages, Kiełbasa, come in a wide range of styles such as Swojska, Krajańska, Szynkowa, Biała, śląska, Krakowska, podhalańska, and others. Sausages in Poland are generally made of pork, rarely beef. Sausages with low meat content and additions like soy protein, potato flour or water binding additions are regarded as of low quality. Because of climate conditions, sausages were traditionally preserved by smoking, rather than drying, like in Mediterranean countries.
Since the 14th century, Poland excelled in the production of sausages, thanks in part to the royal hunting excursions across virgin forests with game delivered as gifts to friendly noble families and religious hierarchy across the country. The extended list of beneficiaries of such diplomatic generosity included city magistrates, academy professors, voivodes, szlachta and kapituła. Usually the raw meat was delivered in winter, but the processed meat, throughout the rest of the year. With regard to varieties, early Italian, French and German influences played a role. Meat commonly preserved in fat and by smoking was mentioned by historian Jan Długosz in his annals:Annales seu cronici incliti regni Poloniae The Annales covered events from 965 to 1480, with mention of the hunting castle in Niepołomice along with King Władysław sending game to Queen Zofia from Niepołomice Forest, the most popular hunting ground for the Polish royalty beginning in 13th century.[2]
Embutidos or Enchidos generally contain hashed meat, particularly pork, seasoned with aromatic herbs or spices (pepper, red pepper, paprika, garlic, rosemary, thyme, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, etc.)
In Spain, several products that could be dubbed sausage exist, although, of them, it is salchichas that are the most similar product to English or German sausages. They usually contained hashed pork meat, and depending on the herbs and spices added two distinct varieties can be found: red or white sausages. Red sausages contain paprika (pimentón in Spanish) and are usually fried; they can also contain other spices such as garlic, pepper or thyme. The most popular type of red sausage is perhaps txistorra, a thin and long paprika sausage originating in Navarre. White sausages, in turn, do not contain paprika and can be fried, boiled in wine, or, more rarely, in water.
Morcilla could be regarded as another type of sausage, although Spaniards do not regard it as such. Morcillas are blood sausages, made with pork meat and blood, usually adding rice, garlic, paprika and some other spices to it. There are many regional variations to them, and in general they are either fried or added to cocidos and boiled.
Although Spanish embutidos such as chorizo or salchichón could be called "sausages", they are not "salchichas" for Spanish speakers at all. In general, Spaniards think of sausages as having to be cooked, whereas chorizo or salchichón are usually eaten raw.
Scottish sausages are both distinct and unique. A popular breakfast food is the square sausage. This is normally eaten as part of a full Scottish Breakfast or on a Scottish morning roll. The sausage is produced in a rectangular block and individual portions are sliced off. It is seasoned mainly by pepper. Despite its unique flavor square sausage is rarely seen outside Scotland and in fact is still fairly uncommon in the Highlands. Other types of sausage include black pudding, similar to the German and Polish blood sausages. Stornoway Black Pudding is held in high regard and measures are currently being taken to bring it under EU geographical protection. Additionally a popular native variety of sausage is the red pudding. It is most common in the North-East of the country and is a chip shop favorite, where it is deep fried in batter as part of a chip supper. It is similar to other European sausages such as chorizo or baloney.
The cervelat, a cooked sausage, is often referred to as Switzerland's national sausage. A great number of regional sausage specialties exist as well.
Falukorv is a large traditional Swedish sausage made of a grated mixture of pork and beef or veal with potato flour and mild spices. The sausage got its name from the city of Falun where it originates from, after being introduced by German immigrants who came to work in the region's mines.
Isterband is made of pork, barley groats and potato and is lightly smoked.
In Turkey, sausage is known as sosis, which is made of beef.
Sucuk (pronounced tsudjuck or soudjouk or sujuk with accent on the last syllable) is a type of sausage made in Turkey and neighboring Balkan countries.
There are many types of sucuk, but it is mostly made from beef. It is fermented, spiced (with garlic and pepper) and filled in an inedible casing that needs to be peeled off before consuming. Slightly smoked sucuk is considered superior. The taste is spicy, salty and a little raw, similar to pepperoni. Some varieties are extremely hot and/or greasy. Some are "adulterated" with turkey, water buffalo meat, sheep fat or chicken.
There are many dishes made with sucuk, but grilled sucuk remains the most popular. Smoke dried varieties are consumed "raw" in sandwiches. An intestinal loop is one sucuk. Smoked sucuk is usually straight.
North American breakfast or country sausage is made from uncooked ground pork mixed with pepper, sage, and other spices. It is usually sold in a large synthetic plastic casing, or in links which may have a protein casing. It is also available sold by the pound without a casing. It is commonly sliced into small patties and pan-fried, or cooked and crumbled into scrambled eggs or gravy. Scrapple is a pork-based breakfast meat that originated in the Mid-Atlantic States. Other uncooked sausages are also widely available in link form, including Italian, bratwurst, chorizo, and linguica.
In Louisiana, there is a variety of sausage that is unique to its heritage, a variant of andouille. Unlike the original variety native to Northern France, Louisiana andouille has evolved to be made mainly of pork butt, not tripe, and tends to be spicy with a flavor far too strong for the mustard sauce that traditionally accompanies French andouille: prior to casing, the meat is heavily spiced with cayenne and black pepper. The variety from Louisiana is often a staple of both Cajun and Creole cooking, and traditionally it is smoked over pecan wood or sugar cane as a final step before being ready to eat. In Cajun cuisine boudin is also popular.
The frankfurter or hot dog is the most common pre-cooked sausage in the United States and Canada. If proper terminology is observed in manufacture and marketing (it often is not), "frankfurters" are more mildly seasoned, "hot dogs" more robustly so. Another popular variation is the corn dog, which is a hot dog that is deep fried in cornmeal batter and served on a stick.
Other popular ready-to-eat sausages, often eaten in sandwiches, include salami, American-style bologna, Lebanon bologna, prasky, liverwurst, and head cheese. Pepperoni and Italian crumbles are popular pizza toppings.
In most of Latin America a few basic types of sausages are consumed, with slight regional variations on each recipe. Beef tends to be more predominant than in their pork-heavy Spanish equivalents. These are chorizo (moister and fresher than its Spanish counterpart), longaniza (usually very similar to chorizo but longer and thinner), morcilla or relleno (blood sausage), and salchichas (often similar to hot dogs or Vienna sausages).
The most common Mexican sausage by far is chorizo. It is fresh and usually deep red in color (in most of the rest of Latin America, chorizo is uncolored and coarsely chopped). Some chorizo is so loose that it spills out of its casing as soon as it is cut; this crumbled chorizo is a popular filling for torta sandwiches, eggs, breakfast burritos and tacos. Salchichas, longaniza (a long, thin, coarse chopped pork sausage) and head cheese are also widely consumed.
In Argentina and Uruguay many sausages are consumed. Eaten as part of the traditional asado, Chorizo (beef and/or pork, flavored with spices) and Morcilla (Blood Sausage or Black pudding) are the most popular. Both of them share a Spanish origin. A local type is the salchicha Argentina, criolla (Argentinian sausage) or parrillera (literally barbecue-style), made of the same ingredients as the Chorizo but thinner.[9]
There are hundreds of salami-style sausages. A very popular is the Salame Tandilero, from the city of Tandil. Others examples are: Longaniza, Cantimpalo and Sopresatta.[10]
Vienna sausages are eaten as an appetizer or in hot dogs (called panchos) which are usually served with different sauces and salads.
Leberwurst is usually found in every market and it is eaten as a cold cut or a Pâté.
Weisswurst is also a common dish, eaten usually with mashed potatoes or chucrut (Sauerkraut), in some regions.[11][12]
A grilled chorrizo served with a buttered arepa is one of the most common street foods in Colombia.
In addition to the standard Latin American sausages, dried pork sausages are served cold as a snack, often to accompany beer drinking. These include cábanos (salty, short, thin, and served individually), botifarra (of Catalan origin; spicier, shorter, fatter and moister than cábanos) and salchichón (a long, thin and heavily processed sausage served in slices).
Lap cheong (also lap chong, lap chung, lop chong) are dried pork sausages that look and feel like pepperoni, but are much sweeter. In southwestern China, sausages are flavored with salt, red pepper and wild pepper. People often cure sausages by smoking and air drying.
Japanese sausages are fewer in variety, but include sausage made from ground fish, ubiquitous to convenience stores.
Sundae, a form of blood sausage, is a traditional Korean sausage. A popular street food, sundae is normally prepared by steaming or boiling cow or pig intestines stuffed with various ingredients. The most common variation is composed of pork blood, cellophane noodle, sliced carrot and barley stuffed into pig intestines, but other regional variations include squid or Alaska pollock casings. Sundae is eaten plain with salt, in stews, or as part of a stir-fry.
In the Philippines, there are different kinds of sausages called longaniza (Filipino languages: longganisa) with mixes dependent on their size of origin: Longaniza de Vigan (longganisang Vigan), Longaniza de Lucban (longganisang Lucban), and Longaniza de Cebu (longganisang Sugbo/Cebu) are examples.
While longganisa is widely accepted as the term for native sausages, in some parts of the Visayas and Mindanao chorizo (Visayan: tsoriso) is a more common term. There are regional varieties such as Vigan (with lots of garlic and not sweet) and Lucban (lots of oregano and pork fat is chunky). Most longganisas contain Prague powder and are hardly smoked and usually sold fresh. In general there are several common variants:
Thai sausages are of many varieties depending on the region of origin. The famous Northern sausage, Sai-Ua, is filled with minced pork as well as herbs and chilli paste and North Eastern sausage, I-san sausage, is fermented sausage with a distinguished sour taste. Both are regularly eaten together with sticky rice, fresh vegetables, fresh chilli or with a serve of side salad, usually som-tum or papaya salad.
Merguez is a red, spicy sausage from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, North Africa. It is also popular in France, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands and the German state of Saarland, where it is often grilled on a Schwenker. Merguez is made with lamb, beef, or a mixture of both. It can be flavored with a wide range of spices, such as sumac for tartness, and paprika, Cayenne pepper, or harissa, a hot chili paste that gives it a red color. It is stuffed into a lamb casing, rather than a pork casing. It is traditionally made fresh and eaten grilled or with couscous. Sun-dried merguez is used to add flavor to tagines. It is also eaten in sandwiches.
In South Africa, traditional sausages are known as boerewors or farmer's sausage. Ingredients include game and beef, usually mixed with pork or lamb and with a high percentage of fat. Coriander and vinegar are the two most common seasoning ingredients, although many variations exist. The coarsely-ground nature of the mincemeat as well as the long continuous spiral of sausage are two of its recognisable qualities. Boerewors is traditionally cooked on a braai (barbecue).
Boerewors can be dried out in a dry-curing process similar to biltong, in which case it's called droë wors.
A local variant of the hotdog is the "Wors roll", or boerewors roll. This is a hotdog bun with a piece of boerewors in, served with a tomato and onion relish called seshebo. Seshebo can include chilli, atchaar or curries, depending on the area within the country.
English style sausages, known colloquially as "snags", are popular at barbecues and are made in Australia using traditional meats such as beef, pork and chicken. European style smoked and dry sausages made with kangaroo meat have become available in recent years. Sausages made with Australian game meats typically have a much lower fat content than beef or pork sausages made by the same methods.
Devon is a spiced pork sausage similar to Bologna sausage and Gelbwurst. It is usually made in a large diameter, and often thinly sliced and eaten cold in sandwiches.
Mettwurst and other German style sausages are highly popular in South Australia, often made in towns like Hahndorf and Tanunda, due to the large German immigration to the state during early settlement. Mettwurst is usually sliced, and eaten cold on sandwiches or alone as a snack.
A local variation on cabanossi, developed by Italian migrants after World War II using local cuts of meat, is a popular snack at parties.
Sausage rolls are a popular snack and party food, as are saveloys, cheerios, and locally manufactured cabanossi. Traditional sausages similar to English bangers are eaten throughout the country; these are usually made of finely ground beef / mutton[13] with breadcrumbs, very mildly spiced, stuffed into a sheep casing which crisps and splits when fried. These may be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. In recent years, many international and exotic sausages have also become widely available in NZ.[14]
Sausages may be served as hors d'œuvres, in a sandwich, in a bread roll as a hot dog, wrapped in a tortilla, or as an ingredient in dishes such as stews and casseroles. It can be served on a stick (like the corn dog) or on a bone as well.[15] Sausage without casing is called "sausage meat" and can be fried or used as stuffing for poultry, or for wrapping foods like Scotch eggs. Similarly, sausage meat encased in puff pastry is called a sausage roll.
Sausages are almost always fried in oil, served for any meal, particularly breakfast or lunch and often "sweet sausages" have been created which are made with any of the above: dried fruit, nuts, caramel and chocolate, bound with butter and sugar. These sweet sausages are refrigerated rather than fried and usually, however, served for dessert rather than as part of a savory course.
Sausages can also be modified to use indigenous ingredients. Mexican styles add oregano and the "guajillo" red pepper to the Spanish chorizo to give it an even hotter spicy touch.
Certain sausages also contain ingredients such as cheese and apple, or types of vegetable.
Vegetarian and vegan sausages are also available in some countries, or can be made from scratch. These may be made from tofu, seitan, nuts, pulses, mycoprotein, soya protein, vegetables or any combination of similar ingredients that will hold together during cooking. These sausages, like most meat-replacement products, generally fall into two camps: some are shaped, colored, flavored, etc. to replicate the taste and texture of meat as accurately as possible; others such as the Glamorgan sausage rely on spices and vegetables to lend their natural flavor to the product and no attempt is made to imitate meat.
The soya sausage was invented 1916 in Germany. First known as "Kölner Wurst" (= Cologne Sausage) by later German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967).
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