[Sca-cooks] white sausages

[Terry Decker]

To make the best white puddings.

Take a pint of the best, thickest and sweetest cream, and boil it, then 
whilst it is hot, put thereunto a good quantity of fair oatmeal grits very 
sweet and clean picked, and formerly steeped in milk twelve hours at least, 
and let it soak in this cream another night; them put thereto at least eight 
yolks of eggs. a little pepper, cloves, mace, saffron, currants, dates, 
sugar, salt, and a great store of swine's suet, or for want thereof, great 
store of beef suet, and then fill it up in the farmes <intestines, sausage 
casing> according to the order of good housewifery, and then boil them on a 
soft and gentle fire, and as thet swell, prick them with a great pin. or a 
small awl, to keep them that they burst not: and when you serve them to the 
table (which must be not till they be a day old), first boil them a little, 
then take them out and toast them brown before the fire, and so serve them, 
trimming the edge of the dish with salt or sugar.

Markham,  Gervase, The English Housewife, 1615

Notes:

Based on entries about oats and oatmeal found further on in the book, the 
oatmeal grits are probably whole cleaned oat kernals, which would also 
explain the long soaking in milk followed by cooking and soaking in cream. 
I would suggest soaking the grits for about 24 hours, then following the 
recipe.  I purchase cleaned, hulled oats at Natural Grocers.  A simple but 
effective substitute would be steel cut oats.

Given the pint of cream, I would expect the recipe to use 8 oz. or 228 g. of 
oats.  Since I haven't made the recipe, this is subject to experimentation.

Boil the sausage at a low simmer, such as used for poaching eggs.

A hat pin or a cake tester should make a good tool for releasing expanding 
gas to relieve pressure as the sausages cook.

Bear