About US

You’ve heard of the Urban Bee Keepers… well now meet the Urban Smokers. We will smoke anything we can in our quest for the perfect home made food. This blog is a documentation of our smoking, sausage and bread making. We’ll try mustard from around the world and make pickles and chutneys to go along with the feasts! Not forgetting some beer drinking for good luck.

A sausage is a food made from ground meat, ground pork fat such as fatback, salt, herbs and spices. Typically the sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made from intestine, but sometimes synthetic. Some sausages are cooked during processing and the casing may be removed afterwards. Sausage making is a traditional food preservation technique. Sausages may be preserved by curing, drying, or smoking.

One of the items which aided the Roman Empire from expanding as far as it did was the sausage. Our history with this style of curing and preserving meat has lasted millenniums.

The first sausages were made by early humans, stuffing roasted intestines into stomachs. As early as 589 BC, a Chinese sausage làcháng was mentioned consisting of goat and lamb meat. Sausage in Italy has its roots in Lucania, now known as Basilicata. Philosophers such as Cicero and Martial stated a kind of sausage called lucanica, actually widespread in Italy, was introduced by Lucanian slaves during the Roman Empire.

Sausages classification is subject to regional differences of opinion. Various metrics such as types of ingredients, consistency, and preparation are used. In the English-speaking world, the following distinction between fresh, cooked, and dry sausages seems to be more or less accepted:

• Cooked sausages are made with fresh meats, and then fully cooked. They are either eaten immediately after cooking or must be refrigerated. Examples include hot dogs, Braunschweiger and liver sausage.
• Cooked smoked sausages are cooked and then smoked or smoke-cooked. They are eaten hot or cold, but need to be refrigerated. Examples include Gyulai kolbász, kielbasa and Mortadella.
• Fresh sausages are made from meats that have not been previously cured. They must be refrigerated and thoroughly cooked before eating. Examples include Boerewors, Italian pork sausage and breakfast sausage.
• Fresh smoked sausages are fresh sausages that are smoked. They should be refrigerated and cooked thoroughly before eating. Examples include Mettwurst and Teewurst.
• Dry sausages are cured sausages that are fermented and dried. They are generally eaten cold and will keep for a long time. Examples include salami, Droë wors, Sucuk, Landjäger, and summer sausage.