Let us speak now of the hotness of the
doggai. Possibly the noblest of foods, if only because it comes from
the humblest of all possible humble origins.
When you butcher an animal, there's a
use for everything. It's either meat for the table, for the dogs, or
raw materials for something else (leather, for example). But even
the most fanatically careful butcher is going to end up with extra
little bits. Some are just scraps of meat or other tissue that are
inevitable byproducts of hacking at an animal carcass with a knife.
Others are small organs or specialty meats that are often small and
require some kind of preparation to make them tasty.
Now there's one organ in particular
that, once removed, requires a LOT of work to make safe to eat.
That's the lower GI tract, specifically the intestines. An elastic
tube several meters long that is filled with partially processed
organic matter. Organic matter that is slightly toxic and suffused
with bacteria and other things that are straight-up bad for you (in a
not fun way).
So, remove from animal, clean and boil.
and boil. and boil. Eventually, you end up with something that is
perfectly safe to eat and quite useful for holding significant
amounts of ground, mashed, chopped or otherwise altered organic
matter.
And thus was the sausage born. Meat in
tube form. Chunks of animal flesh mixed with fats, herbs, spices,
and whatever else may seem like a good idea. The Unnatural Banana.
Re-invention of the worm into something a little more tasty and
slightly less likely to die in the sun on the sidewalk.
Fitter-in-a-bun.
Holder-of-the-mustard. Profit margin for the meat-seller.
Seventh-inning-special. Cured. Smoked. Fermented.
Done-other-things-to. Meat modified from it's simple state into
something mysterious and variable.
Pepperoni. Frankfurter. Salumi.
Pate. Merguez. Lap Cheong. Kamaboko. Chorizo. Sai ua. Sucuk.
Bangers. Kielbasa. Currywurst. How many others?
I don't know and I don't care. I just
know that there aren't many foods that put such a smile on people's
faces, mine included.
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