Sizzling Sausages!!

Banger

I’m a great fan of pork products:

To be deprived would be a great lossage -

So I’m here to sing you the praises,

Of the noble, and various sausage.                                                        

There’s Cumberland, and there’s your Irish,

And French ones from the town of Toulouse,

And they’re all bound to get juices running,

For soon as you cook them, fat’s starting to ooze. 

On the Continent you’ve got Saucisson,

In Germany there’s a thing called a Bratwurst.

It’s not Baloney to think of Poloney,

A nation without one should call itself cursed. 

The flavours come in all shapes and sizes,

To suit the rich and the hoi-polloi.

A chipolata’s good for a starter,

But pales beside the good old Saveloy. 

You can go the whole hog for a Hot Dog,

But salami, I think, looks perter.

You can be a hanger for a good banger,

Especially if it’s a Frankfurter. 

But I think we must look rather deeper,

And we’ve got to be really willing,

To delve into methods of production,

And to wonder just what’s in the filling. 

The casing might be natural or false,

But there’s lots of things can call themselves pork.

You’d be surprised if only you knew,

Exactly what’s on the end of your fork. 

They like to use up all of the animal,

And be sure that nothing can go to waste,

So everything gets ground up you see,

And reduced to a pink kind of paste. 

Mechanically-recovered’s the term,

With cereal and rusk they pack and they fill,

And then they do grind, lots of thick rind,

And the snout, the ears and the nostril. 

Most of the innards, and outwards, are used:

The guts, the toe-nails and the eye-lashes,

The pistle, the gristle and even the whistle,

Mixed all up into hashes and mashes. 

Colourings and plenty of flavourings,

Additives and seasonings to begin,

You’d wince, if you knew what went into the mince,

That was finally forced into the skin. 

The feet are mixed up with wheat, and even some teat,

Some spice, some rice, perhaps even some mice,

Then its ground and bound, and gently browned,

That’s the way to make it taste nice. 

For these are some of the ingredients,

The contents that the makers might favour.

After all, without all the e-numbers,

How would we ever get any flavour?

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2012