Sausage has been an age long method of preservation as recorded by the primitive man, the ancient Egyptians and American Indians. The word ‘sausage’ has been described as originating from the Latin word ‘salsus’, which means salted. This would imply that sausage processing, in the form of adding salt to meat, existed at least several hundred years bc.
Homer who lived about the 9th or 8th century BC gives in detail the slaughter of a heifer as part of a religious ceremony. The collection of the blood from the animal and the manner of slicing and roasting the meat reflects the importance the Greeks placed on animal products as food.
In Odyssey (an epic poem in 24 books), it was saying that a favorite food of the Greeks. Roman festive occasions were considered incomplete without it.
In the tomb of Rameses III, a painting depicts the manner in which the Egyptians prepared their food. detail and is not too different in appearance from the methods used in the 1920's in the U.S. Rameses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt.
Sausage making evolved as an effort to economize and preserve meat that could not be consumed fresh at slaughter. This practice could be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans who made sausages which were usually plain and unspiced.
Apicuis in his Roman Cookery the oldest known cookbook describes puddings, loaves, and molded sausage like products. This Roman cookery thought to have been compiled in the 1st century AD.
Dr. E. N. Horsford in his report to US Army on the Army Ration of 1864, he mentioned that the Germans were quite skilled in sausage preparation and utilized all of the edible components of the animal.
He listed the necessary equipment for sausage manufacture and suggested means of making cloth casings coated with gelatin when other sources were not available.
Early sausage makers found that a wide range of raw ingredients could be used. The primary ingredients of sausage were the parts of the animal carcasses that could not be used in other ways.
In Europe, dry sausage was largely developed in southern Europe where such products are unlikely to spoil in the warm climate. On the other hand, northern Europe gave rise to cooked sausage where a cold climate permitted longer storage.
History of sausage production
