[Sca-cooks] Sausage Stuffers

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

> I'm completely unclear as to what was supposed to be dangerous about  
> this. Horn is basically collagen, which some artificial sausage  
> casings are made of anyway. The "dangerous" stuff in a horn is  
> basically bits of dried cow and dirt, which you scrape away, washing  
> and scalding away the residue. While I can see a desire to render  
> this horn food-grade, what I can't see is where it wouldn't be.
> 
> Did I miss the big condemnation thread?

Probably not here, but there's a strong and peculiar tradition in 
certain places that making and stuffing one's own sausages is considered 
for some reason dangerous. I've heard several food professionals (not 
Laurels) say that one should never try to make sausage at home for a 
feast.

The only thing I can think of is a fear that it will take so long that 
one gets beyond the safety margin for keeping meat between 40 and 140 
degrees F.

I remember cooking the sausages served at Mistress Brighid's feast and 
having someone standing over me insisting that I test each link with a 
meat thermometer. (For once I was on the Phlip side. Once the meat in a 
pork sausage turns white white white, and it tastes done, it's done. But 
I'm a country girl with a German background and I was cooking in New 
Jersey. I just gave in and did it. I suffer from peculiar superstitions 
about New Jersey foodways anyway.)

-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it screams
'Why don't you ever listen to me?' and lets fly with a club."