Home Made Sausage?

Sausage making is an ancient art. The word “sausage” originally meant, “salted meat.” In the 1400’s, the German Sausage Makers Guild formulated regulations to ensure that sausages were made from decent meat. I won’t quote every item that was banned from use, but typical items on the list included “rotted meat,” and “pustulated meat.” In reading those banned items, one can’t help being disgusted to think that laws had to be passed to preclude such things.

Because it can be highly seasoned and run through a grinder, sausage is susceptible to any number of man-made outrages.

But I love pork sausage and I’m very particular about what my family eats.

There are hundreds of recipes available on-line, from Andouille and Bangers, to Irish Sausage and Weisswurst. Traditional “sausages” are simply sausage meat stuffed into casings. Casings are either natural-usually pork or lamb intestine, or made of emulsified beef hide, called “collagen casings.” Collagen casings are much easier to work with, exactly uniform in size, and can be purchased for hanging in a smoke house, or very thin, to be used only as “fresh,” meaning not smoked. Not everyone has a sausage stuffer. One isn’t needed to be able to enjoy premium quality pork sausage.

The sausage meat is exactly the same, whether stuffed into a casing, or simply made into patties, like hamburger. Any recipe you can find for any sausage you can name is available.

You certainly can make your own recipe according to your own tastes. Whether your sausage is tubular or in a patty, the flavor is the same.
If you buy a pork shoulder butt, grind and season it according to any recipe you like, you’ll never again be satisfied with commercially made sausage.