Meat, game and poultry
Sausages
Katherine Bruce's recipe of 1688 for sausages calls for tender, lean pork, cut into pieces and pounded in a mortar.
She advises adding as much fat as the cook feels necessary. After seasoning with cloves, mace, pepper and salt, and adding grated bread, the mixture was ready to be put into skins.
English cookery books from as early as the 1630s suggest twisting sausages into links, but Katherine does not mention this.
After light smoking in front of the fire, they were ready for roasting on mutton or capons. She comments that prepared this way, the sausages 'will last good a wik [week]'.
'To mak saseges', from Katherine Bruce's recipe book
Katherine Bruce's recipe book, 1688. By permission of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. [Library reference: MS.17854]
