Little bags of mystery

OF ALL the questions you’re not supposed to ask about food, there’s one that stands head and shoulders above the rest – what’s in a sausage?

After all, snags have something of a bad reputation as a vehicle for all manner of unnamed and occasionally unidentifiable offcuts including lips, organs, tails and, well, you do the maths.

Little wonder then that diners of the Victorian period referred to them as little bags of mystery.

Indeed, at certain times in history, sausages were almost completely devoid of meat at all and, instead, were composed of cereals and grains.

During World War I, a lack of available meat meant butchers would take oats, rye or cracked wheat and soak it in salted water, then mix this with the little amount of mince on hand. Alarmingly, these sausages would routinely explode as the high water content reached steam point in the sizzling fat, thus earning them the nickname “bangers”.

Today, however, Australian Food Standards provide at least some guidelines about what can and cannot be put into a sausage.

With specific reference to sausages, the AFS simply asks two things of manufacturers.

Firstly, a sausage must contain at least 50 per cent non-fat meat by weight, and the fat content cannot be more than 50 per cent of the total meat content.

Beyond that, only the more general rules about additives, preservatives and handling, which apply to all foods, come into play.

You should expect that your sausage will contain some amount of cereal or filler, to stabilise if nothing else.

There are a huge range of sausages available. But, if you really want to find a great sausage, find a great butcher.

Hand-blended artisanal recipes are the heart and soul of what the craft of sausage-making is all about.

Ingredients 155g (1 cups) almond meal 70g cup) gluten-free cornflour 75g cup) raw sugar 35g cup) desiccated coconut 40g cup) millet flour 40g cup) sesame seeds 2 tsp baking powder 110g cup) coconut oil, melted 3 eggs 1 lemon, rind finely grated, juiced 2 tsp vanilla essence Large pepitas, to decorate Flaked almonds, to decorate Natural sliced almonds, to