Full transcript
0:00Ah, the great British banger.
0:02Or the lovely salami.
0:03Or the battered saveloy.
0:04Hang on, just what is a sausage? And why do they taste so good?
0:09The concept of sausages goes back to antiquity -
0:11stuffing animal guts with a meat, fish or sweet batter mixture
0:14was an obvious and practical way
0:15to make easily cooked, transportable food.
0:18Originally, they were seen as small puddings –
0:20a large pudding was a haggis,
0:22done in a stomach, rather than a length of gut -
0:24and, like puddings, they were often boiled rather than fried.
0:27The French word for sausage, boudin,
0:29even gave us British the word ‘pudding’,
0:31since early puddings were sausages,
0:33and sausages really were a type of pudding.
0:36Sometimes they were smoked or air dried to keep through winter.
0:39Everywhere, though, for those who could afford it,
0:41a spiced fresh meat sausage was a pretty staple item.
0:44Even for those who couldn’t afford good meat and fine spice,
0:47sausages were about from very early on.
0:49There was a play called The Sausage Seller written in the 5th Century BC,
0:53and already then the lower-grade sausage
0:55had a whiff of uncertain meat
0:57disguised with judicious sauce about it.
1:00In the medieval era, northern, wetter climes such as the UK
1:03developed a speciality in fresh meat sausages,
1:05to be cooked before eating.
1:07Elsewhere, in dry climates such as the Mediterranean
1:09which had good, stiff breezes and mountains,
1:12dried or smoked sausages were more popular.
1:14There they would cure properly,
1:16and not simply go green as they would in Britain.
1:18There were still mixtures with fish, fruit and blood –
1:21black pudding for example –
1:22but as the centuries rolled on,
1:23most European sausages became based on a mixture
1:25of pork, pork fat and flavourings.
1:28They were not posh, and by the 18th Century
1:30they rarely appeared at the dinner tables of the wealthy -
1:32though they happily ate them as suppers and snacks.
1:34But they were very popular,
1:36and available for almost every possible budget.
1:39Mass production became possible by the mid-Victorian times,
1:41and even cheaper sausages came out, with a hefty filler of bread or rusk.
1:46Saveloys in particular gained a reputation
1:48for being based on off-cuts and filler,
1:50or indeed, horsemeat and sawdust in some people’s view.
1:53Then, as now, the dirt-cheap versions
1:55rubbed shoulders with the more expensive ones –
1:58until the First World War,
1:59when meat shortages meant that no-one got much meat in their casings.
2:02One theory as to why they became known as bangers,
2:05shortly after the war,
2:06is that the level of filler meant they banged and popped when fried.
2:09However, it’s just as likely to come from their shape,
2:11which resembled shell casings,
2:13not least as they were still often boiled to cook them.
2:16Normally, they are cylindrical,
2:17but they can, on occasion,
2:19be square like a Lorne.
2:20Today, eighty-five percent of Brits regularly consume sausages,
2:24plain, as bangers and mash or as in toad-in-the-hole –
2:27though globally it’s the cocktail sausage which is the king,
2:30for a bite-sized piece of porky glory.
2:32Small or large, contents as you wish,
2:35we’ve had sausages for thousands of years,
2:37and they are clearly here to stay.