“All that is necessary for the enjoyment of sausages at breakfast, is confidence.” – Baltimore Sun, 1847
Historically, sausage-making has been a winter thing, but the sage in my backyard was out of control so I figured I’d make a go of it.
With dozens of recipes at my disposal, choosing one seemed daunting until I compared them and determined that they are all pretty much the same. That’s because the basic seasonings for sausage have hardly changed since America was first colonized.
Only the wealthiest of colonists would be likely to possess a copy of “The English Huswife” by Gervase Markham, published in 1615. Nonetheless, in it they would find a recipe for “links” made of fat and lean pork stuffed into casings and smoked by the fireplace after the meat had been minced and seasoned with salt, pepper and “a good store of sage.”
“The Art of Cookery”, Hannah Glasse, 1780 edition
The same sausage seasoning formula is used in Hannah Glasse’s 1747 English cookbook. Eliza Smith, who also wrote a popular book in England which was published in the colonies in 1742, used sage but included cloves, mace, and rosemary. The addition of cloves and mace is predictable for the era but eventually fell out of favor while sage remained.
As for the Maryland cookbooks, I did my whole “spreadsheet thing” with recipes from all of the standards from “Maryland’s Way” and “300 Years of Black Cooking in St. Mary’s County” to “Domestic Cookery” (1845, Elizabeth Ellicott Lea) and “Mrs. Charles Gibson’s Maryland and Virginia Cookbook.”(1894) The primary change in that intervening century is one I can get behind: the inclusion of red pepper. The oldest recipes such as those from Elizabeth Ellicott Lea, M.L. Tyson and Mrs. B.C. Howard are, unsurprisingly, the saltiest. Sausage is a preservation method after all.
Although sausage didn’t undergo a flavor revolution throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, it did experience a mechanical one. The meat grinder was invented in the 1800s.
1881 advertisement, “Sanitary and Heating Age”
Elizabeth Ellicott Lea’s sausage instructions implied that she had access to a “chopping machine” in the 1840s, but that it was still a lot of work to cut the meat to fit into the machine. Since she was managing a small farm, she was making massive quantities of sausage. Lea advised that since “pork season in the country is one of the busiest in the year; everything should be prepared before hand that you possibly can.” She made sure to bake pies, bread, and stewed apples, and to have all vegetables washed “so that every member of the family, that is able, may devote herself to the work of putting away the meat which is of so much importance for the coming year.”
Cookbook author Marion Harland wrote in 1872 that sausage from a mill “is better, and the grinding does not occupy one-tenth of the time that chopping does, to say nothing of the labor.”
Sausage was of worthy importance for families to invest in specific equipment, but some choppers were sold alternately as a “mince meat cutter.” Baltimore merchant F.B. Didier & Brother took out a newspaper ad in 1855 declaring: “Every private family should have one for cutting up sausage or pie meat and for hashing purposes generally, meats or vegetables.”
Since the machines were essentially selling themselves, publications of the late 1800s advised hardware store owners on brand loyalty and complementary products to up-sell customers on.
Hardware: Devoted to the American Hardware Trade, 1894
To think, when I bought the attachment for my mixer, it was a frivolous purchase. (There may be a way to break even if you eat a lot of sausage and buy cheap meat…)
Since my sausage was intended to be kept in a freezer, I didn’t worry too much about preservation. I was curious to taste the effect of the common additive of saltpeter but I never got my hands on any, so I used pink curing salt containing sodium nitrite. I may have went a little overboard with the sage.
The butcher at John Brown General and Butchery recommended the 70%/30% meat to fat ratio. That too has not remained unchanged in centuries of sausage-recipes.
The quality and texture of home-made sausage are better but the seasoning (if you follow this formula) is pretty similar to what you’d get in a grocery store. I originally set aside a portion to season with Mrs. B.C. Howard’s unusual inclusion of ginger. Since I didn’t find the taste disagreeable I eventually mixed it into the larger batch.
My freezer is filled with months worth of sausage and I can’t complain.
Recipe:
- 5 lbs of meat, 30% fat
- 1.5 oz pink curing salt
- 1 oz black pepper
- 1 oz cayenne pepper
- 2 tb dried sage
- optional: additional dried thyme, savory, marjoram, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, allspice
Run meat through grinder and blend well with herbs which have been finely ground. Cook a small amount to taste and adjust seasonings if desired. Roll into 1lb logs in waxed paper to store. Cook in sliced patties for sandwiches or crumbled for other dishes. Freeze up to 6 months.
