Even the ancients thought of ramming minced meat into the washed intestines of animals. So this product has been with one person for a long time and there is hardly anyone who has never eaten a sausage in his life. November 13 is even declared its international day. Interestingly, some consider sausages to be a convenient alternative to meat and calmly give them to children, others are sure that they are terribly harmful, solid and chemical soy. Who is right?
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– In the past, sausages were made by hand: good quality meat was finely minced, lard, salt, spices were added, minced meat was stuffed into bags. Such a product was also served in restaurants – with truffles, for example, stewed in wine or cream. And then industrial meat grinders appeared and the recipe changed, – technologist Ekaterina Melnikova tells the story of the product. – In the USSR, by order of the People’s Commissar for the Food Industry, Anastas Mikoyan, 20 meat processing plants were built in different cities. In 1936 the production of sausages was started. GOST has been approved: sausages should contain more than 50 percent of natural meat. More spices, milk powder or cream, as well as sodium nitrite – preservative E250. It retains an appetizing pink color (otherwise sausages and sausages would be gray, like boiled meat), but its main task is to eliminate the risk of anaerobic microorganisms, such as the causative agent of botulism.
Now, as you know, we have no GOST, but technical conditions, but this does not mean that the sausages have deteriorated. You just need to pay attention to the category – it should be indicated on the label. The letter designations correspond to the amount of muscle tissue, that is, meat, in the product:
- A – 80%
- B – 60 – 80%
- B – 40 – 60%
Quality sausages cannot cost less than a pound of meat from which they are made. What they put into a cheap product, I personally can’t predict. Most likely it is an emulsion of skin, veins, cartilage and offal, thickened with starch and flavored from the heart with aromas, dyes, spices.
What else you need to know:
- The shelf life of loose sausages in a natural casing is three, in an artificial one – five days. Vacuum packed – 10 – 15 days, but once you open the package you have three days to eat them.
- You can store sausages in the freezer for up to two months. Then they will gradually lose their flavor.
- Too bright pink means there was too much dye. The color of the sausages should be contained.
- If you see any herbal ingredients in the composition, put the package back on the shelf.
- Do not take chicken and turkey sausages as dietary. Ground chicken is quite liquid. Therefore, more vegetable starch, such as carrot, fiber is used to retain moisture. In general, it is best to only cook chicken and take traditional sausages.
- In production, the sausages are thermally processed. So it is not necessary to boil them for a long time. You can pour hot water, hold for a minute in boiling water or heat in the microwave (just make cuts so they don’t burst).
Mixed and famous
Born in Frankfurt, Johann Laner moved to Vienna and opened a butcher’s shop. It was he who came up with the idea of mixing minced meat with pork, so that the sausages turned out to be exceptionally juicy. It is believed that such sausages first went on sale on November 13, 1805, and this date went down in history as the sausage’s birthday.
Frankfurt and Vienna to this day contest the right to be considered the cradle of sausages. At the same time, in Austria such sausages are called Frankfurt (Herr Laner decided it), and in other countries – Viennese.
Do not give to children
Nutritionists are skeptical of sausages. It is definitely not recommended to give them to small children, even if now special ones are produced, in which there seem to be fewer preservatives (they are not even pink like the “adult” product). But still with no additives in production in any way. Plus a lot of fat and salt. In general, we do not give to children under the age of five, therefore – no more than once a week. However, adults are also advised to stick to the same frequency. With hypertension, obesity, metabolic disorders, allergies, gastrointestinal diseases, sausages will have to be abandoned.
What is the salt
We borrowed a funny word for Russian hearing from French. Their sauce derives from the Latin salscius, “salty”. In the 18th century, a variant of “socisk” existed in the Russian language.
Keep in mind
- After manual boning of the carcasses, the meat still remains on the bones. It is sent to a separator press: mechanically boned meat is obtained (it can be indicated on the label: MMO). The unit separates the main bones from the meat, but part of it is still ground. Cartilage and fat also enter ground beef. In general, there is nothing wrong with this, except that the protein in such a product is half the size and there is more fat than in regular meat. As a rule, the MMO goes for boiled sausages and cheap sausages.
- 76 hot dogs in ten minutes: the world record for the consumption of sausages.
Photo source: Ivan Makeev / KP
