Sausage Week 2011British Pub Week 2011 is already in full swing, if you haven’t already spread the word, get down your local pub and show some support.  British Pub Week 2011 this year also coincides with another Great British national week “National Sausage Week 2011” running from the 2nd to the 8th Nov.  With an astonishing 400 unique varieties of sausage produced in the UK there’s plenty of sausage to choose from.  Get down your local pub demand some sausage, and beer, and amaze your friends with your knowledge of the sausage…

Quick Sausage’y facts

1. The sausage is an ancient form of food, pre-dating most historical cultures, the Sumerians were believed to have cooked the first sausages over 5,000 years ago.

2. The slang word for sausages “banger” was adopted during the second world war. Due to a lack of ingredients sausage makers would add water to their sausage recipe, when the water turned to steam inside the sausage skin, it would often explode with a “bang!”

3. The worlds longest sausage weighed in at 15.5 tonnes, and measured 35miles long. Unfortunately never officially adjudicated by the Guinness World records – who recognise a measly 1,500m German sausage as the record holder, our British 35 mile long masterpiece will not be forgotten.

4. Sausages are a product of efficient butchery.  Butchers use parts of the pig that are both edible and nutritious to make sausages, these ‘parts’ including organs, blood and fat would normally go to waste, seen as unsavoury by consumers, wrap it all up in a sausage format and you’ve got Britains number one home cooked meal.

5. The Frankfurter was a sausage made by a German butcher in the image of his pet Dachshund (sausage dog), in 1906, American cartoonist Ted Dorgan produced a painting of a dog in a bread roll covered in mustard to commemorate the German butchers sausage invention, unable to spell Dachshund Ted called it “hot dog”.  The name seemed to stick.

If you’re in the Twickenham area, you might want to get yourself down to the Rifleman they have organised a Beer, Cider and Sausage Festival. If you’ve got any sausage facts, recipies or just want to talk sausage leave a comment in our comments section below or join in the conversation on our Facebook page. Cheers!

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