I found an interesting book today. I have carefully copied and pasted a little of the 400+ pages. The book isn't for the squeamish. It deals with wholesale production of pork and beef and has graphic details about abattoirs. If you use the link I've provided please know that there are graphic details of food production. If you are from PETA, please see my post on Sentimental Vegetarianism, elsewhere on the internet.
This is a book from a time when industrial scale food processing was just ramping up. Whilst the recipes are too large for home use, they can be scaled down and tried. I haven't made a thing here (as of April, 2011), but I like to post about little known culinary delicacies. Especially Danish, regional English and German sausages. By reading a book on sausage making and meat curing from earlier times, I can see how recipes have evolved, how some ingredients have stayed the same and some changed. All of the posts with the title: Danish Sausage and Meat Cures are copied from:
Douglas's encyclopaedia : a book of reference for bacon curers, bacon factory managers, bacon agents, meat purveyors, meat inspectors, meat salesmen, abattoir superintendents, city, county, or local authority officiers, cold store proprietors and managers, sausage and pork pie makers, and all other industries associated with the meat, pork, provision, and general food trades / compiled and published by William Douglas & Sons Limited.
London : W. Douglas, [between 1901 and 1907]
Most of the Danish factories go in strongly for sausage making. There are always lots of bits and other meat which is specially adapted to be turned into sausages, and which it is difficult to dispose of otherwise. The Danes eat great quantities of raw smoked sausages of various sorts, which,whilst looking and tasting very nice, often contain a mixed variety of ingredients less pleasing to the eye and nose in their crude state.
Danish Bacon (Side marked No. 1).—This side of bacon is, in appearance at anyrate, as strictly lean and as perfect as a lean, sizeable side can be. There is plenty of middle and a very good belly. Neither is it too broad either at the shoulder or flank. In all probability a descendant of one of the large white Yorkshire boars imported to Jutland by Magnus Kjoer of Holstebro, and crossed once or twice with the Danish pig, so called " Land race" or country breed. This is a well-butchered side and well finished. The fat and lean are well proportioned.
(Danish Bacon Side marked No. 2).—This is by no means so good a side as No. 1, being rather short and much too broad at the shoulder and middle. The flank is also quite broad enough, and the belly is only of passable thickness. The back fat being very irregular makes it an unprofitable side for the curer or shipper, as the thickness of the fat at the shoulder is out of all proIx)rtion to the rest, which causes it to be sold as a fatter section than would otherwise have been the case. Possibly a cross between an imported Berkshire boar and a Danish pig of mixed breed.
Danish Bacon (Side marked No. 3).—This is about as bad a side of bacon as one could wish to see, being almost as bad as a "skinny" side, i.e., a side having next to no back fat. It represents the lowest grade of bacon. The back fat is of a thickness only suitable for Manchester trade, but the extremely thin belly renders it useless for anything but seconds or unbranded bacon. Perhaps the most profitable way of getting rid of such a side is to cut it up for sausage meat. The pig is probably very badly bred and inbred. It is also a wide, ugly side, and the tenor of all bacon curers, especially the smaller ones.
Danish Sausage Making.—The system of sausage making throughout all Denmark is totally different from the English, or, indeed, any other method. Sausages are used largely as hors d' wuvres by the Danes, and in slices are to be had in sandwiches at the principal railway stations. Amongst the poorer people sausages are much used as a staple article of food, and thus there is large consumption. Whether these sausages will ever become popular in the United Kingdom it is hard to say. In any case, an attempt to introduce them is being made by the Danish Government, who have recently sent a representative to England with that special mission.
It is little wonder that the Danish Government should be sanguine as to the introduction of sausages. Did not the bacon trade begin in the same unpretentious way? Now it amounts to 40,000 sides per week! The following are the recipes for various sausages made. These recipes are in use in many factories in Denmark, and are jealously guarded as secrets of the mysterious trade. These recipes, notwithstanding, have had the advantage of being authoritatively verified, and may be relied upon as being accurate in every way.
Sfiegepolse or Danish Smoked Sausage.
50 lbs. Beef,
50 lbs. pork,
24 lbs. fat, chopped fine,
16 lbs. fat, cut into small cubes,
5 lbs. fine salt,
60 gram, saltpetre (powder kali),
140 grams sugar (fine white powder),
170 grams fine white pepper.
This is perhaps the most used sausage in Denmark. It is always eaten cold or raw cut in very thin slices on bread and butter. All sinews having first been extracted from beef and pork, especially the former, they are chopped up together, and when about half chopped the fat is added, as also the spices.
When the whole is fairly finely chopped and well mixed together, it should be packed tightly in a wooden trough for twenty-four hours, as this allows the saltpetre to colour it better and renders the mass firmer. The meat is then placed in the sausage filler, and filled into ox or horse runners as tightlv as possible. The tighter the skin is filled, the better the sausage will be for cutting when dried. As soon as the skins are filled, they should be laid down in a pickling vat and lightly covered with coarse salt. Boards should then be placed on the top of them and they must remain there until all the salt has turned to pickle, when they are taken out and hung up to dry in the air, i.e., until all moisture runs off them. As soon as they are dry, they should be smoked in cold smoke until they are a rich, dark brown colour. The sausage is then ready for eating, and will keep several months. Length about 18 inches.
Cervelatpolse, or Danish Beef and Pork Sausage.
50 lbs. beef,
50 lbs. pork,
25 lbs. fat (back) in cubes, size
3 lbs. salt (fine),
60 gram, saltpetre (powder kali),
100 gram, pepper (fine white),
100 gram, sugar (fine white powder),
25 gram ginger
25 gram nutmeg (grated)
Meat to be carefully sinewed as No. 1, and beef and pork then chopped together quite fine. When chopped, place in power mixer and mix spices and fat cubes well together. A couple of gallons of pure water can be dribbled into this mixture if done very slowly. When mixing is done, meat to be filled hard into ox runners and let hang for twenty-four hours. Smoke in very warm smoke till skins are brown, and then boil at once until sausage is about as elastic as an india-rubber ball, and will hop if let drop on the table. This is an absolute proof that the sausage is cooked through. Skins then to be painted with red varnish; length 18 inches. Sausage is eaten cold, thin slices as No. 1.
A cheaper sausage of same name as No. 2.
75 lbs. horseflesh,
25 lbs. veal,
10 lbs.potato meal, with as much water as it will hold.
Spice and otherwise treat as No. 2.
4. Knockpolse or Hard Smoked Danish Sausage,
40 lbs. beef,
10 lbs. back fat,
25 lbs. pork
25 lbs. Veal,
2 ½ lbs. salt (fine),
60 gram. saltpetre (powder kali),
30 gram nutmeg (grated fine),
40 gram cinnamon(ground fine),
40 gram ginger (ground fine),
120 gram pepper(fine white),
8 eschalots (very small white onion) grated fine
with a little salt (fine), or 8 garlic cloves.
First chop beef and veal together half fine, then add pork, and when the whole is fairly finely chopped, throw in fat. Continue chopping until fat is cut into small cubes about this size.
[The image given is a square 5 mm on a side. Slightly larger than 3/8" square.]
The whole should then be thoroughly, mixed in power mixer where spices are added. The whole then to be filled into hogs' runners and divided into sausages about 6 inches long, meat not to be filled too tightly. The meat need not be as carefully sinewed as Nos. 1 and 2. When filled, hang to dry for a day and smoke in warm smoke. Boil for eating warm or cold.
A much cheaper sausage than No. 4 (a), but of same name.
Made up of bloody bits, small meaty muscles and any refuse not good enough for first or second class goods. Otherwise same treatment and spices as No. 4 (a).
5. Wienerpolse or Bayerskepolse (Vienna or Bavarian Sausage).
50 lbs. pork,
25 lbs. veal,
25 lbs. back fat,
2 ½ lbs. salt, fine,
60 gram saltpetre (fine kali),
60 gram coriander (fine ground),
100 gram sugar (fine white),
120 gram pepper
4 garlic cloves grated fine with a little fine salt.
8 eschalots grated fine with a little fine salt.
Only the best meat must be used for this sausage, and there must not be the slightest vestige of a sinew in the meat, as it is a great delicacy. The meat to be minced together first, and the fat to be so done afterwards. Mix the lot together, spices and all, in power mixer, and then fill into lambs' runners loosely. Divide into sausages of 5 inches length (links). Let them hang a day, and smoke in warm smoke until of a bright brown colour. Boil five to eight minutes, when they are ready for the table.
6. Leverpolse No. 1 or Liver Sausage No. 1.
1 fine large liver (pig's),
10 lbs. veal, (belly, neck, and legs),
10 lbs. pork (breast or belly),
7-10 lbs. fat (good belly fat or soft back),
3 lbs. fine salt,
40 gram, thyme (powdered),
50 gram nutmeg (powdered),
50 gram ginger (powdered),
60 gram marjoram (powdered),
140 gram pepper (fine white),
5 lbs. fine pork.
N.B.—4 small onions in winter; none in summer, as they easily cause acidity.
Having extracted all sinews and gristle from pork and veal, boil them and mince together. The fat to be cut into small cubes; the liver to be skinned, and the thick veins removed and to be boiled in the boiling broth for from five to six minutes. Then chop it a little, add a little salt, and mince quite fine. Now throw the minced veal and pork, fat cubes and liver into the mixer along with 5 lbs. minced raw fine pork. Now add spices and a cooking-spoonful of the broth with fat floating on top of it, if possible, and mix well together. Fill into hogs' fat guts, not too hard, as the liver expands in the cooking which follows; avoid curly guts; length, 18 inches. Then boil the sausages in boiling water
for fifteen to twenty minutes, wash them, and lay them on a table to cool. The sausages are then ready for the table, cut in slices cold. Are also used fried in slices warm. This sausage can be smoked in cold smoke in winter, and keeps well.
N.B.—The onions to be mixed with the liver in winter only whilst it is being chopped.
7. Leverpolse No. 2 (Liver Sausage No. 2).
A cheaper sausage than No. 1.
25 lbs. liver (any sort),
75 lbs. meat, sheep, ox heads, udder, tripe, hearts, lung, kidneys, and fat.
Spice as No. 1.
Treat same as No. 1 as regards mixing and boiling. Fill into ox runners.
Liverpostej (Liverwurst or Danish Liver Sausage).
10 lbs. flare fat,
3 or 4 livers according to size,
4 to 5 lbs. cut pork meat, free from fat,
10 eggs,
6 to 12 anchovies according to size.
Add pepper, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon to season according to taste; fill in bullocks' runners; boil two hours.
There are thousands of these sausages sold in Denmark.
Bacon Trier.—A sharp-pointed instrument, varying in length from 6 to 12 inches, and used for "trying" meats of all kinds in the manufactured state, such as ham, bacon, corned beef, tongues, and all salted and pickled meats. The trier is pushed into a fleshy part or parts of the meat, and is withdrawn at once and smelt. If the meat is tainted, the taint can be readily smelt on the trier. In order to preserve cleanness and to get rid of the smell should any taint be encountered, the trier is kept stuck in a bag of fine ground shellings, or may occasionally be inserted into a little bag of lime and well wiped. It must be noted that when the trier is withdrawn from meat it leaves a small hole which should be invariably, and without exception, closed with the forefinger immediately, so as to exclude the air from the hole.
Bayonne Meat.—Take a piece of pork from the neck to the sixth rib; bone it, take the fat and rub it well with salt. Cut in pieces and lay in a pickle tub, putting a handful of salt between each layer. Then pour over the piece enough aromatic brine until it is an inch above the meat; cover them, and let them stay in the brine from eight to ten days. Take them out, and let them lie on the top of each other for four or five days to get tender. Now make them round with the hand and then remove.
Beef and Pork Sausage (American Recipe).—Use 75 lbs. of beef, free from tendons and veins, wipe dry with a clean cloth, and after being partly chopped add 25 lbs. Fat pork. Chop until very fine, season with 30 oz. of salt. Mix well, and stuff into beef middle casings. Dry in the open air until they have become hardened They can easily be kept for a year. See also Cervelatpolse.
Beef and Tongue (Special) in Glass Moulds.
Required—pigs' tongues, beef briskets, flat ribs, flanks, etc.
The tongues must first be well washed, freed from all saliva, and then immersed with the beef in the following pickle :—A liquor of salt and water is first made, and the scum, as it rises to the top, thoroughly skimmed off. The should be 70° on Douglas's Salinometer. Weigh to each gallon of pickle required,
1 oz. saltpetre,
½ oz. dry antiseptic*,
½ lb. moist sugar,
½ oz. black peppercorns,
½ oz. white peppercorns,
½ oz. Jamaica peppercorns,
¼ oz. Cayenne pods.
The peppercorns and Cayenne pods should be tied up in a muslin bag and with the saltpetre, dry antiseptic, and sugar, put into a stewpan with about a quart or so of water, and brought to the boil, stirring until the saltpetre, etc., are thoroughly dissolved. Add the whole to the pickle, and stir the same well. Allow to cool, and it is then ready for use. The pigs' tongues and meat will require from fifteen to eighteen days in pickle, when they are taken out and well washed and then cooked. Sufficient rinds, pigs' feet, or any other available jelly-making constituents should be added, or, if not available, add sufficient gelatine to make the liquor into a firm jelly when cool. When properly cooked it is all taken from the kettle, the latter is wiped clean, and the liquor part strained back into it through an ordinary horse-hair sieve. The meat is sliced thin and crosscut into pieces of from one inch to an inch and a half in size, and put back into the kettle. The tongues are skinned and sliced neatly into longitudinal slices, and placed round the sides of the glass moulds in the most attractive way possible. Then the contents of the kettle are poured in to fill up the mould. The moulds are then put into a cool place to set. When thoroughly set, a thin layer of hot lard is poured on the top, and the mould covered up and labelled, or they can be hermetically sealed by using a canning vat.
*[The “antispetic” referred to is EITHER: calcium bisulfite, or: calcium hydroxide – BOTH of these chemicals are currently on the US FDA's list of chemical preservatives that are GRAS, Generally Recognized As Safe. As in -safe to eat-. So, you, reader must do the rest of the research and determine the quantities to use, if you are concerned about the safety of these recipes.]