[Sca-cooks] Sausage Stuffers

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Nov 2, 2006, at 3:24 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
> It would be interesting to know if the Laurels with the putdowns have
> any background in working with horn or cooking.

This was my question, too, and it occurred to me that the ideal  
solution would be to name them, since I'm sure they stand by their  
convictions, and since I know of at least one Laurel who doesn't see  
it as any more of a problem than with working with most plastic  
utensils, assuming the surface is clean and smooth.

> Raising  safety
> concerns is legitimate when reproducing period techniques, but saying
> something shouldn't be done without checking into the concerns to see
> whether they are valid is just as foolish as ignoring the concerns.

Yeah, it's often so much reactionary doofishness, and sometimes it's  
easy to wonder if some people might react differently had it been  
their own idea...

I believe somewhere you asked about the mechanics involved, Stefan,  
and I'm not sure if this was addressed. The basic horn premise is  
like using a funnel, as I believe Jadwiga said: you thread the  
casings onto the tight end of the funnel, pack your meat into the  
wide open end, knot off the end of the casing, and force the meat  
through the funnel (some processes call for a ramrod of some kind,  
like a short piece of wooden dowel). The funnel can be curved like a  
horn, which makes putting a ramrod through it a little difficult, but  
not insurmountable; you just use the straightest horn you can find,  
and cut off the point, leaving a tapered, hollow tube. Obviously  
you'd want it as clean as possible, using maybe a piece of steel wool  
on a stick, or a wire brush or something like that to get the inside  
smooth. If you use a ramrod, you obviously don't use one the same  
diameter as the wide end's opening, or else it won't slide down  
inside for any distance.

You can still buy a modern sausage-stuffing tool that looks a bit  
like a modern barrel scoop for grain or sugar, that kind of stuff --  
the open end is partially cut away to make it easier to push the  
contents by hand into the funnel portion. Essentially a funnel with a  
hopper at the end, with pressure assisted by the physical scooping of  
the meat mixture into the funnel. I have no evidence, myself, of this  
being done with horns, but you could certainly do it, and some might  
find it useful.

Adamantius