Sausage in ancient world

The word sausage is derived from the Latin word ‘salsus’. Literally meaning salted or preserved, sausages and salamis were originally made out of bare necessity, like clothes and shelter, as a way of preserving meat without refrigeration.

First salamis were pounded with mortar until a meat paste was obtained, then paste as stuffed into casing and dried.

Homer wrote 2,800 years ago of roasting sausage in the Odyssey. He mentioned that sausage as a favorite food of the Greeks.

By the time of Julius Caesar, the arts of seasoning and preserving meats had advanced to a high level. Caesar gained advantages over his barbarian enemies by issuing preserved meats to his legions.

It is one of the oldest forms of processed food. The history of sausage production extends back to the ancient Babylonians, who produced and consumed sausages 3,500 years ago.

By 589 BC, the ancestral Chinese made a kind of semi-dried sausage called ‘lupcheong’. This sausage contained small pieces of lamb, salt, sugar, green onions, pepper, wine, and soy proteins.

The first Italian cookbook, Liber de Coquina in 1300s, outlines a fresh fish sausage made from wrapping boiled fish and chopped herbs in cheesecloth before frying it in oil to hold its shape as it heats.
Sausage in ancient world