Thick or thin

September 6, 2003 10:28 AM

Sausagemania We love a gourmet story. I know we love em.The Brits love em.Even the Yarpies love em.Bit surprised this is a US site.I thought they were limited to a sort of badly produced chipolata type thing @ breakfast only.Get stuffing. Via coolios.
posted by johnny7 (17 comments total)

Vis-a-vis the old saw about laws and sausage: the edible pork product assembly line looks a lot cleaner and much more appetizing (now that I am an EX- vegetarian) than the dirty doings on the floor of our legislative bodies.
posted by kozad at 10:48 AM on September 6, 2003

Pork barrel politics?

I appreciate this guy's love for good sausage, but he's just mixing CostCo ground pork with some spices, a pretty standard procedure, wouldn't it be easier to just buy the damn things at a good butchershop?


posted by matteo at 11:08 AM on September 6, 2003

Just where I can get one of those machines? I also agree with matteo that if you really dedicate your time to make sauseges, shouldn't you use better quality materials?
posted by hoskala at 11:44 AM on September 6, 2003

Sausagemaniac.
posted by sharksandwich at 12:37 PM on September 6, 2003

Speaking of ingredients, I've begun grinding my own beef and pork recently. After reading in Fast Food Nation that a pound of ground beef can contain meat from up to 300 cows, I finally went out and bought a grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer. While a bit more involved than opening a 99 cent package form Costco, the flavor is quite a bit better.

Being of hearty German stock, I took a stab at sausage making by diving right in and whipping up a batch of Weisswurst. I learned one important thing: Sausage making requires at least two people; one to feed the machine and one to guide the stuffing into the casing. Trust me on this.
posted by sharksandwich at 12:57 PM on September 6, 2003

After reading in Fast Food Nation that a pound of ground beef can contain meat from up to 300 cows, I finally went out and bought a cow
posted by matteo at 1:29 PM on September 6, 2003

what el hamburguesa tiburon said. don't even have to have a grinder to make your own burgers, any old food processor should do just fine. my burgers contain meat from at most 2 cows, so they taste at least 150x better. not trimming all of the fat off also helps.

damn you all for tempting me with sausage-making. (I hear salmon and chicken make for decent homemade sausage too, although not both at the same time I'd think...)

[US breakfast sausage == travesty of meat]
posted by dorian at 1:50 PM on September 6, 2003

Sharksandwich--we grind our own beef too. Fewer cows and fewer shit smears, which is what I think they should call it when they talk about ecoli contamination. We have used and loved this cookbook by Bruce Aidells. Looks like he has a new one. I think we got our stuffer from this place. Ickiest thing was going to the casings place for natural casings. The U.S. has lots of sausage, so to speak, what with the germans, mexicans, poles, cajun/creole, italians, romanians, lebanese, chinese, vietnamese, etc. plus all the people who go hunting for deer, boar, etc.
posted by lobakgo at 2:06 PM on September 6, 2003

"Vis-a-vis the old saw about laws and sausage"

"People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made."

--Porky Pig
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:07 PM on September 6, 2003

Who could resist the goodness of 300 cows in one sausage?

Folks, don't forget to WASH YOUR HANDS, and don't store raw mince.

A certain amount of fat is a good thing for mouth-feel and flavour. Salt helps the mix gel.

Matteo asks why not go to the buther? It's a matter of trust.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:21 PM on September 6, 2003

US breakfast sausage == travesty of meat

A few years ago when Finland joined the EU, our "National sausage" was described by the EU regulations as pastry.

There was too much wheat flour in it...
posted by hoskala at 2:27 PM on September 6, 2003

i_am_joe's_spleen--good reminder about handwashing, wash the faucets too if you gunk them up. Too lean sausage is mealy, yuck. We don't go to a butcher because there isn't one close by. But mainly because I know our equipment is clean and hasn't just ground a days worth of beef and as a result is more likely to be contaminated. By the way, you can store natural casings for a very long time in brine in the refrigerator.
posted by lobakgo at 2:34 PM on September 6, 2003

I'm confused... Why does one cow taste better than 300? I want to pack in that cowish goodness.
posted by kcalder at 3:01 PM on September 6, 2003

mmm. cow concentrate.
posted by crunchland at 3:03 PM on September 6, 2003

Reason #4324 to wonder what the hell I'm doing living in Korea : in a country of almost 50 million, there's apparently one guy who makes real sausage, and he's German, and such an anomaly that he's been on TV, repeatedly.

*sigh*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:35 PM on September 6, 2003

ooh that's right, Korea has that sausage made of rice (or rice noodles?) and blood. tried it once, never again...even copious amounts of soju did not help.
posted by dorian at 4:54 PM on September 6, 2003

As a vegetarian, I don't have much to add to this thread, except to relate a snippet of conversation I overheard this afternoon at 34th & Broadway in NYC:

Her: "I don't understand why everybody likes her."

Him: "Well ... she's got the whole package."

Her: "Package? More like a sausage!!"
posted by lisa g at 5:10 PM on September 6, 2003