On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 334

the most luxurious Sausages The word sausage comes from the Latin for “salt,” and names a mixture of chopped meat and salt stuffed into an edible tube Salt plays two important roles in the sausage: it controls the growth of microbes, and it dissolves one of the fiber filament proteins (myosin) out of the muscle fibers and onto the meat surfaces, where it acts as a glue to bind the pieces together Traditionally the edible container was the animal’s stomach or intestine, and fat accounted for at least a third of the mixture Today many sausages are housed in artificial casings and contain far less fat There are an infinite number of variations on the sausage theme, but most of them fall into a handful of families Sausages may be sold raw and eaten freshly cooked; they may be fermented; they may be air-dried, cooked, and/or smoked to varying degrees in order to keep for a few days or indefinitely The meat and fat may be chopped into discrete pieces of varying size, or they may be disintegrated, blended together, and cooked into a homogeneous mass And the sausage may either be mostly meat and fat, or it may include a substantial proportion of other ingredients Early Sausage Recipes Lucanians Pound pepper, cumin, savory, rue, parsley, seasoning, bay berries, and liquamen [salted fish sauce], and mix with wellpounded flesh, grinding both together Mix i n liquamen, whole peppercorns, plenty of fat and pine-nuts, force into an intestine stretched thinly, and hang in smoke — Apicius, first few centuries CE Liver Sausage (Esicium ex Iecore) ... varying size, or they may be disintegrated, blended together, and cooked into a homogeneous mass And the sausage may either be mostly meat and fat, or it may include a substantial proportion of other ingredients Early Sausage Recipes... Pound pepper, cumin, savory, rue, parsley, seasoning, bay berries, and liquamen [salted fish sauce], and mix with wellpounded flesh, grinding both together Mix i n liquamen, whole peppercorns, plenty of fat and pine-nuts, force.. .and/ or smoked to varying degrees in order to keep for a few days or indefinitely The meat and fat may be chopped into discrete pieces of varying size, or they may be disintegrated,