San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-12-03
MYSTERIES OF THE SAUSAGE.


Some of the Ingredients which Go to
Make Up That Popular Article.
OF all articles of diet the sausage is most
mysterious. Concerning the manner in
which this interesting comestible is pro-
duced very little is known. 1t is simply
necessary to consider the market price of
animals and to do a little figuring there
upon in order to perceive that the more Or
binary grades of sausage sold cannot by
any possibility be composed in a manner
that would be pleasant for the consumer
to understand. When you buy the product
at eight cents pound you imply a recog-
milton of the fact that the manufacturer
can hardly make a profit save by employ
ing for his purposes materials fairly termed
refuse, even if he does not set traps for
stock in the cellar and on the back fence.
The forequarters of the steers used are
the parts selected for the purpose, for the
reason that the meat from that part of the
animal is found to produce better sausages
than the headquarters though the latter
are frequently employed also. OF the hogs
all parts are utilized except the ribs, which
bring a good price for chops, and the part
of the breast that is turned into bacon.
What is known as heavy veal''-that is
to say, calves weighing $50 or 800 pounds
lis made use of entire.
The first thing to do in the manufacture
of the sausages is to kill the animals and
cut them up. Each beast SO treated, in
butchers parlance, is separated into the
carcass" and the "fifth quarter" The
fifth quarter consists Of the head and feet
the entrails, the brain. the heart, the liver
and the lungs. For many of these things
most people would have no use, but there
are plenty of customers who like the beef
or hog brains for frying, and even the
lungs for cooking in two or three styles.
Triple, which is the lining of the stomach,
goes in with the fifth quarter.
The carcass remaining after the fifth
quarter has been removed is divided with
knives and such portions as are to be used
for sausages, after remaining in the icebox
for some days, are cit from the bones and
chopped into a fine hash by machines with
many knives that go up and down ever so
fast After being made into hash in this
way the meat is put back into the icebox,
and after O second cold seasoning is chopped
again.
Next ii goes to the mixing machine.
There are endless numbers of recipes for
mixing, no two sausage makers using the
same proportions OF materials or the same
seasoning. Some sausages are made en-
tirely of pork, while others are of beef
alone, but the ordinary kind are mixture,
frequently half and half, of beef and pork
together. The operator in charge of the
mixing machine manages this according
to his formula and at the same time puts
in the seasoninS-mace, sage, sweet mar
joram and all sorts of spicy things.
Now it only remains to put the sausage
meat thus prepared into the cases." as
the butcher calls them These cases or
skins for the sausages are the coverings of
the intestines Of steers, sheep or hogs. They
are sometimes so long that ease" taken
from sheep will stretch occasionally nearly
the length of the Center market, having
been wrapped up In convolutions in the
animals body. A machine specially in
vented for the purpose fills these long in
testinal tubes one Mt time with sausage
meat, forcing It In from a cylinder filled
with the stuff. A single case will not in
frequently hold as much as twenty-five
pounds Of the meat. .E
When this has been done IL only TO
mains to tie little knots of Irvine about the
sausage tube few inches apart, and the
product is ready for market. German
sausages, so called because they are manu-
featured after recipes that Germans sp-
prove of, are not ordinarily divided into
lengths. The speckled appearance of DO
logna sausage, which is composed of beet
only, Is caused by the fat that is mixed
with it. Blood sausage is so called because
it contains one part of beef or hogs blood
to two parts of meat. Washington Star.