Summer sausage

Is summer sausage PC for AWI?

Two questions. Did such stuff exist? Hard Sausage has been around a long time so yes. Two: did anyone in the AWI use it? I don't know. There were already a lot of German-Americans in the country (Penn and then down through MD and VA) and they would probably have been familiar with it.

I don't find any items by the name of summer sausage in my database, but there is a mention of "500 large Savillat Sausages" among a very large inventory of supplies lost by the French in a battle in Italy, at the Castle of Guastalla, 1735. Those were almost certainly hard sausages.

In 1772 there is an item in the South-Carolina Gazette, referring to an essay written by Michel de Montaigne in the 16th century, and in it he mentioned "Bologna sausages".

I think it's safe to assume some kinds of hard sausages were available in the AWI period.

Spence

Pa Dutch still make a hard sausage called "bag sausage". the meat and spices are mixed and put into muslin bags and hung up in the smoke house until hard. They come out about 2 to 2.5 inches in diameter. It is usually slightly sweet.

I sort of "jumped" from summer sausage to hard sausage in the respect it doesn't need to be refrigerated.

There isn't much difference between summer sausage and hard bag sausage around here.

I have two reprints of early 1800's cook books. I will have to check. Years ago, when I toured Gunston Hall in Virginia, Mrs. Mason's original handwritten cookbook (late 1700's)was open on the kitchen table. The tour guide was mighty huffy about me trying to copy down the recipe the book was open to. I don't know if they ever published her cook book or not. Unfortunately, I think most of that information was passed down by word of mouth and was never actually written down during the time period. For instance, the German settlers in PA made scrapple, and scrapple is still made, but mostly by men and usually by just mixing the ingredients and not an actual written recipe. I make it once a year and use the ingredients I have on hand. I don't really follow a written recipe.

Keep in mind that in the East, the most common meat before the end of the War of Northern Aggression was pork, and salting was the usual method of preservation for that period

found this from 1638

To make Andolians._

Soak the hogs guts, and turn them, scour them, and steep them in
water a day and a night, then take them and wipe them dry, and turn
the fat side outermost.

Then have pepper, chopped sage, a little cloves and mace, beaten
coriander-seed, & salt; mingle all together, and season the fat side
of the guts, then turn that side inward again, and draw one gut over
another to what bigness you please: thus of a whole belly of a fat
hog. Then boil them in a pot or pan of fair water, with a piece of
interlarded bacon, some spices and salt; tye them fast at both ends,
and make them of what length you please.

Sometimes for variety you may leave out some of the foresaid herbs,
and put pennyroyal, savory, leeks, a good big onion or two,
marjoram, time, rosemary, sage, nutmeg, ginger, pepper, salt, _&c._


_To make other Blood Puddings._

Steep great oatmeal in eight pints of warm goose blood, sheeps
blood, calves, or lambs, or fawns blood, and drain it, as is
aforesaid, after three days put to it in every pint as before.


_Other Blood Puddings._

Take blood and strain it, put in three pints of the blood, and two
of cream, three penny manchets grated, and beef-suet cut square like
small dice or hogs flakes, yolks of eight eggs, salt, sweet herbs,
nutmeg, cloves, mace and pepper.

Sometimes for variety, Sugar, Currans, _&c._

Sausages,banggor ect and& even pemmican smoked,hard and dry &even fresh have been used as far back in history as we can find.Romans ate more sausage then meat cuts.In pompey sausage shops are found among the fast food shops.I've tasted german,english and philipeno black(blood )sausage and don't much care for the taste.I lean to hard sauage while treking as its light full of calories and taste like I like.I only like a few 18th/19th cent recipies,and I dont eat things I dont like when i'm on vacation.The authnic meals I do like I eat at home as well as camp,otherwise I eat and carry foods similar to, but spiced in a way that fits my taste.Summer sausage is just a mix of todays taste in hc package akin to shooting ball cast in lyman or lee mold in your fusil. :hmm:

One issue I have while on the trail is some sort of meat that needs no refrigeration. I usually just make jerky and pound it into a powder that I mix up in stews, etc but after a while (if it is a long trip) I get sort of tired of eating it. On the hard sausage, I don't know that much about it but I sort of assumed you first dried meat and then mixed with rendered lard which would be pemmican except you added spices, etc that turned it into hard sausage.

crockett said:

One issue I have while on the trail is some sort of meat that needs no refrigeration.

Click to expand...

I have carried fresh meat and bacon on a 2-3 day trip with no ill effects. I keep it cool in my pack, in the shade or hanging from a tree in a cloth bag. Not sure what your conception of a "long" trip might be, but I would feel comfortable carrying unrefrigerated meat on a 4-5 day trip.

Another very PC option is to salt your meat. It then can be stored at ambient temperature indefinately (protect from moisture). The disadvantage is that it may need to be soaked to remove excess salt prior to cooking and eating (depending on your tolerance to salt).

Considering meat was usually boiled to make a stew for a group mess, a little salt may not be a bad thing if additional items are added to the pot (hominy, barley, corn, beans, rice, etc.).

To me about 10 days is the dividing time, over a week I suppose. I still have to try potted meat.

not only sausage, jerky and smoked dried meats but also dried, smoked salt fish was carried.
cod was a common item. salmon also.

Here is a recipe for summer bag sausage from a Mennonite Farmer I knew 50 years ago.

17 pounds ground beef
8 pounds ground pork
1 pound salt
1.5 pounds sugar
2 oz pepper
1/2 oz saltpeter

mix meat well and combine and mix in spices well. Stuff into long muslin bags and hang in a cool dry place for two weeks. Then hang in a smoke house, and cold smoke for 8 weeks until hard.

that oughta cure it - pound of salt to 25lb meat and 8 weeks in the smokehouse.
my grand-dad ran a good sized smokehouse he built into the side of a slope his house was built atop. smoked meat for folks, and cured hams and bacon. I can barely recollect this he did it until around '58, few years before he passed on.