Home Sausage Making by Susan Mahnke Peery - January 15, 2003

Sausage as the ingredient of the year in 2000! Who would have thought that Bon Appetit would make such a choice? But sausage it was. Maybe it was an increased interest in Mexican and other ethnic home-cooking; or the addition of new flavors such as apple, pesto, sun-dried tomato, and jalapeno pepper; or the development of leaner, healthier versions of old favorites (low-fat, turkey, hot Italian sausages anyone?). Whatever the reasons, sausage is hot and sales are growing. The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council expects sales to grow to $11.7 billion by 2008. So why not try your hand at making your own sausages?Home Sausage Making, with 95,000 copies in print, is the classic in the field. Now repackaged in a smaller, friendlier trim size for a new generation of sausage lovers, and completely revised and updated to comply with current USDA safety standards, this new edition features 150 recipes. Included in the lineup are 100 recipes for sausages (cased and uncased) and 50 recipes for cooking with sausage, all written for contemporary tastes and cooking styles. There are instructions for making sausages with beef and pork, fish and shellfish, chicken and turkey, and game meats. Ethnic favorites include German specialties such as Bratwurst, Mettwurst, and Vienna Sausage; Italian Cotechino and Luganega; Polish Fresh and Smoked Kielbasa; and Spanish-Style Chorizo, Potatis Korv (Swedish Potato Sausage), Kosher Salami, and Czech Yirtrnicky. On top of all the meat varieties, there is an entirely new section on vegetarian sausage options.'