Inspiration: Hannah Woolley‘s career as a professional author of household guides made her a respected, and oft-reprinted, resource for people organizing homes and kitchens. Her works — including her best known titles The Queen-Like Closet and The Accomplish’d Lady’s Delight — set the standard for early modern entertaining, eating, and healthcare at home.
The British Library’s 1664 copy of Woolley’s The Cook’s Guide, or Rare Receipts offers a detailed account of how her sausage is made. Involving four days of preparation before the casings can be stuffed, not to mention at least one more night “smoaking them … in the Chimney,” Woolley’s Polania Sausages could “keep in oyle seven years” and were meant to be served cold.
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To make Polania Sausages TAke Pork, and pick it clean from the bones and skin, let it not be too fat, mince it well, and beat it in a Mortar very fine; then weigh it, and to every pound of meat, take one ounce of salt; then take Pepper, Cloves, Mace, Ginger, Nutmegs and Cinnamon, of each a like quantity, being mixed together, allow one spoonful of this to a pound of meat; then take Anniseeds Carroway seeds, Coriander seeds, of each a like quantity mixed together and beaten; allow half a spoonful of these to one pound of meat; first season your meat with the salt, kneading it in very well, and so let it lye one day and one night; then put in your spices and knead them in very well with a little Muscadine, kneading it morning and evening with a little more Muscadine two dayes together; your guts must now be ready, having before lyen in salt and water two dayes, then in sack and musk two dayes more, then fill your guts with the meat, and smoak them one night in the Chimney; then hang them where they may have the warmth of the fire, when they are dry take them down and keep them in a barrel of Wood ashes sifted to keep them as long as you please; if you would not have them dry, take them down and put them into so much oyle as will cover them; after they have been smoaken a night or two (they will keep in oyle seven years) when you would eat of them, boyl them very well, and slice then thin and eat them cold. |
