Press

[This page includes About this website, History and facts, About me and Photos]

About this website

I set up this website around 2001 because I was frustrated with some of the sausages on offer locally.  I’d also heard about the demise of traditional sausage making skills.  Initially the website was a joke but it was also a humorous attempt to harness the collective power of the internet to share sausage maker recommendations, cooking tips and news about sausages.  I had no idea, at the time, how passionate the sausage loving public of Great Britain were.

As my profile grew the press nicknamed me The Sausage King, a nickname I was delighted with.  Inspired by The Long Way Down I got a motorbike and started touring the UK in search of sausage perfection.  The trips, which I make during holiday time (I’m a teacher), have led me far and wide.  I’ve covered well over 5,000 miles in search of sausage perfection.  As the High Street has declined I think sausages could be the key.  If we can get people back to their local butchers and sausage makers, we can get them back spending on the High Street.  My new book, The Sausage King Adventures, will be geared towards doing just that.

Follow my travels around the UK on a series of motorbikes at www.sausagefans.co.uk

History and facts

The humble sausage isn’t quite as humble as you might think!  Here are some facts:

  • We are a Nation of Sausage lovers with over 5 million people eating over 12 million sausages a day
  • We have nearly 500 different sorts of sausages in the UK
  • Take into account the ways butchers make those sorts and you can eat a different sausage every day for ten years around the UK
  • The market is worth over £737m a year!  During the year to July 2013 we ate 188,270 tonnes of sausages
  • 87% of British households buy sausages, 45% at least every four weeks
  • Sausagefans.co.uk has over 1300 sausage makers listed, all recommended by website visitors for inclusion
  • The British sausage even has its own Fan Club, the British Sausage Appreciation Society.
  • The most expensive sausage ever was made from Fillet steak with Champagne and truffles and cost £20 a pack
  • Sausage machines can fill sausages at a rate of 1 1?2 miles an hour
  • Approximately 188,270 metric tons of sausage was consumed in the UK last year!  Laid end to end this gives us enough chipolatas to:
    • Form a wall, four sausages high, around the entire coastline of Great Britain!
    • Cover a distance from London to Perth in Australia and back twice!
    • Wrap around the London Eye, the capital’s Millennium wheel, 129 thousand times!
    • Add another layer, 10 sausages high, to the entire length of the Great Wall of China!

Some history:

  • The word sausage derives from the Latin salsisium, meaning something that has been salted
  • According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first specific reference in English came in a fifteenth century vocabulary ‘Salcicia’, a ‘sawsage’
  • Sausages were nicknamed bangers during the Second World War. Their high water content due to the scarcity of other ingredients meant that they were liable to explode when cooked as the water turned to steam
  • Sausages are even older than ancient Greece or Rome ? the Sumerians (modern day Iraq) made sausages 5,000 years ago
  • During the early days of the Empire, Romans mixed fresh pork with finely chopped white pine nuts, cumin seed, bay leaves and black pepper
  • In 320 AD, because of their association with pagan festivals, Roman Emperor Constantinus I and the Catholic Church made sausage eating a sin and their consumption was banned! This led to sausages going underground until the ban was lifted
  • It is believed that sausages were brought to Britain by the Romans some time before 400 AD. Since then various English counties have each had their own way of flavoring their local sausage – e.g. Lincolnshire flavors fresh sage and Cheshire uses Caraway and Coriander
  • By the Middle Ages sausage making had spread to Northern Europe and different varieties began to develop as butchers used ingredients available locally. In some locations, early sausage makers became so adept at making distinctive sausages that their fame spread across Europe
  • It was in the reign of Charles I that sausages were divided into links for the first time in Britain
  • Once made, sausages used to be stuck up chimneys to be mildly cured

About me

I’m an accidental sausage expert who started this website as a joke.  After feeling the enthusiasm of the sausage loving public I’ve become more and more involved in the World of the great British sausage.  I’ve judged sausage competitions up and down the country and worked to promote a whole range of quality British producers.  I started my “Sausage King Adventures” to promote British pork and traditional sausage making skills.  The sausage loving public got behind me and frequently recommend new producers to visit and new sausages to try.

Recently I put realised that sausages could the ultimate ambassador for the High Street.  If we can encourage people to see the difference in their local butcher’s shop then we can encourage them to spend money on the rest of the High Street.  Sausage power!  Now I’m writing a book about my travels, experiences and the Great British Sausage!  Several chapters will be available as a free download and all visits will be blogged about on this website.

If you would like to interview me or get any more information about sausages please email press@sausagefans.com in the first instance.

A recent radio interview on BBC Radio Scotland:

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Pictures

Here are some pictures to use with articles, please include a link back to this website.  Click on the picture for a higher resolution version.

IMG_3210 IMG_3213IMG_8095IMG_0332 IMG_0382 CIMG7986 IMG_5659Judging IMG_2851

 

 

 

 

 

 

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