Home Farmer Magazine The Sausage Book Special Issue

Paul Peacock’s The Sausage Book is an excellent entry into sausage making for the novice, and a great read for any more experienced hand looking for new ideas and inspiration. Paul has the unique skill – all too rare in today’s kitchen celebrities – of not making it clear how clever he is, but rather how easy the task is once you roll your sleeves up and get ‘stuffing’ – the technical term for making your sausages. After a brief section on the history of the sausage – the world’s original fast food ‒ the book deals with the required equipment and materials, and the different techniques for making top notch sausages together with common pitfalls and early errors, followed by the real gem of this super title; over 90 easy-to-make recipes for different sausage mixes, ranging from the traditional British banger and numerous regional variations, to European, Far East and South African variations such as the popular Boereworst. Paul also includes a number of alternative fillings too, such as vegetarian, fish and shellfish, and an original hedgerow sausage for the forager containing rabbit, pork fat, breadcrumbs, water, sloes, hawes, elderberries and beech nuts. Each year, for the past nine years, The Sausage Book has been a great Christmas stocking filler (or should that be ‘stuffer’?), but let’s not forget its political importance too; it is dedicated to former Prime Minister, The Rt. Honourable Jim Hacker, the man who stopped the EU from reclassifying the classic British Sausage as the ‘Emulsified, High-fat, Offal Tube’. A true kitchen classic dealing with a subject that should have any right-minded person rolling about with laughter, and a task that is always best enjoyed if performed with a partner. Sausage making really is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.