…Eat! Eat! Went the stomach.
Why, why, why are sausages so popular throughout Europe but particularly in Malta and Gozo?
(So asks erstwhile Horsted Keynes resident, Albert Fenech, writing from his adopted home in Malta. Over to Albert…)
Raw Maltese sausages
Many, many may think that sausages in Malta are a favourite dish as a result of its British inheritance for 160 years – but that is not so.
Yes, they are popular and an easy uncomplicated dish to eat but not so easy to manufacture because of the careful and patient work involved. While resident in England they were certainly one of my greatest favourites – particularly bangers ‘n mash!
Where did the popular nickname bangers come from? According to my information this came about during World War I when meat throughout Britain was so scarce because of the war until somebody came up with the bright idea of mashing pork or beef with other ingredients and stuffing these into animal skins which were then knotted, wound and cut to a length of about eight to ten centimetres.
Why “bangers”
During my lengthy time in England, bangers ‘n chips or bangers ‘n mash were at least once a week regular dishes and never ONCE did the thought come into my brain of “oh – not again!” When these were pioneered in Britain during WWI the stretched filled skin when knotted would emit a little “bang” – and hence the nickname.
Minced Meat and Shredded Dried Breadcrumbs
This foodie trend of thought was triggered off by an article by Seren Charrington Hollins entitled “The British Love of Sausages” in Unknown Kent and Sussex on 11th May and urged me to selfishly nurture that “anything you can do, we can do better!” Not as an incitement to Seren of course but a friendly passing thought.
Why? – because for hundreds of years we have been making sausages as a basic food stuff for the majority of the poverty-stricken and the poor, a plate shunned by the rich and the elite as food appropriately reserved “food for them” (the rank and file of nobodies).
The Filling
Initially, the basic filling was that of scraps of discarded raw meat or plate leftovers which, rather than being thrown away were carefully minced and combined with other ingredients.
Parsley and Garlic – essential
The other ingredients are a substantial hash of liquidised breadcrumbs and easily available for cheapness black ground pepper, coriander seeds, sea-salt and generous chopped parsley as well as a substantial amount of chopped or crushed garlic.
The Maltese sausage provides three main assets:
(1) It can be made from minced pork, beef, lamb, rabbit or chicken although pork and beef are the most popular.
(2) The sausages, either whole, sliced, mashed etc may be cooked in every manner possible – fried, grilled, roasted, barbequed, boiled, stewed, used in soups, as sausage rolls, with any manner of vegetables, pasta, meat puddings and any other form of cooking you can imagine.
(3) Although patience is required in their making, sausages are a very affordable breakfast/lunch/dinner dish, are filling and never boring. They are of course found in every butcher’s shop, supermarkets and groceries as well as being on the menu of all eating outlets.
Hung out to dry
Sausage filling machines and then hung out to dry
The main ingredients are:
2kg of finely ground meat of your choice
1kg of dry and ground white bread
30gms of ground black pepper
15 to 30gms of crunched coriander seeds
30 to 55gms of sea salt
10 minced garlic cloves
Bunch of finely chopped parsley
Garlic cloves – Yum, Yum?
I follow these contents but have added my own measures in the case of garlic cloves and parsley. In my personal estimation, the major strong taste I personally require is that of loads of garlic and loads of parsley and on these I do not restrain my use.
Many years ago when I was still a boy, the use of garlic was greatly frowned upon in Britain and expressed to be “continental stench”. Just to admit to eating garlic led to comments of “yuk” and “continental smelly muck”.
Pumpkin soup spiced with sausage slices
Pasta with sausage crumbles, sausage rolls and pumpkin soup laced with crumbled sausages
Needless to say I disregarded these comments and stuck firmly to the Maltese sausage lovelies regularly painstakingly made by my dear parents or brought to us by our friends and visitors from Malta as a first choice when before departure from Malta they asked us “can we bring you anything with us?”
A recent survey carried out in Malta and Gozo established that the basic and most-loved foodstuffs by the inhabitants are the FTIRA (a round and crusty-baked bread in a rounded coil with a hole in the middle; GBEJNIET (round cheeselettes made from goat milk and well-peppered); and of course, MALTESE SAUSAGES!
Mix ‘n Mash
The mixing and mashing of the contents is of course an easy matter, the more it is thoroughly mixed and mashed, the better. The intricate and patient means of stuffing these into meat skins to be stuffed and cut to size is where extreme patience is needed.
With Tomatoes, Cheeselettes, Broad Beans, Cumin, Eggs, Pepper & Smoked Pepper
Nowadays, updated inventions such as a sausage stuffier attachment or a sausage machine makes things easier and takes out most of hassle. Old-timers will shun these and insist on traditional ways, using a funnel to squeeze the mix into skin and having additional skin to cut off the sausage (the banger effect) and knotted to produce individual sausages which are then hung out to dry.
Writing this has made me hungry and it is almost noon so I will switch off and enjoy a traditional lunch of Maltese sausage and potatoes stew my wife has kindly made for me.
Thank you my dear wife Tilde – my Saviour.
