Probably few things identify your German heritage more than making sausage. It was a means of survival of our German ancestors during the winter months, as well as not wasting precious meat scraps,

Although most civilizations came up with the idea for a sausage, our forefather's and mother's ingenuity probably came up with the idea of using the intestines to put all the little parts of the pig that were left over including the blood all on their own. Nothing was wasted except the squeak.

According to my favorite food historian Alan Davidson the best sausage makers were in the colder countries like Germany as opposed to Mediterranean countries where food was more available during the cooler months. The best cured sausages seem came from mountainous regions where the dryer northern winds helped in the curing process. This is why Britain wasn't known to produce good cured sausages. Some attempts at making cured sausages back then resulted in a new form of bacteria poisoning which they later called Botulism, which the word comes from Botellus, a latin word for sausage. the use of Nitrates and proper sausage making have eliminated this.

Where does the word Bratwurst come from? one theory is that BrAt is an Old High German word (spoken between the 9th and 11th centuries) that means ....meat without waste ....and Wurst means sausage and probably comes from the word wirren that originally meant mixture.

When you cook sausage you are performing one of the oldest cooking techniques. The first recorded cookbook “Apicus Cookery” from approx. 228 AD has sausage recipes in it. Apicus lived in Rome. But who knows when and where this technique began.

Our German heritage is even more identified with sausage as the pig was the animal of choice for meat as probably beef is in America, Unsurprisingly the pig is a good luck symbol in Germany. Also it is very cold in the winters, sausage was an excellent way to preserve the pig and use up all the trimmings ….”all but the tail and the oink” as some have put it.

In America our German ancestors have really kept the Bratwurst tradition going. It has become a social food in places like Wisconsin where they have “Brat frys” on the weekends like they have BBQ’s in the south.

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Last updated June 4, 2006