Sausage Basics: Sausage Glossary

• botulism – An illness from exposure to the toxin botulin, produced by the Clostridium botulinum bacteria. A bad way to go—double vision, slurred speech, and paralysis—and the reason all sausage must be properly cooked or otherwise prepared.

• bung – The caecum (or cecum), which connects the large and small intestines. Beef bungs are often used to make larger sausages.

• caps – Another term for “bung.”

• casing – The tubes into which sausage is stuffed, traditionally the intestines of the same animal being prepared. Some casing is meant to be consumed along with the sausage, while some synthetic casings are meant to be removed before cooking. The larger the animal, the larger the casing, meaning the larger the sausage.

Casings varieties include: hog casing, made from pig intestine; lamb casing, made from sheep intestine; beef casing, made from cow intestine; collagen casing, made from animal connective tissue (very common in the States); cellulose casing, made from solubilized cotton (common in hot dogs); muslin casing, made from fabric; synthetic casing, including those made from alginates (a salt of alginic acid, often derived from seaweed) and plastics, made from dead dinosaurs who we’ll never be able to turn into sausage. (Hat tip: 3men.com.)

• grind – All sausage is ground or otherwise pulverized before being stuffed into casing, via an electric or hand-cranked grinder. The “grind” denotes how big a chunk will come out of the grinder, from a 3/4-inch “coarse grind” to an 1/8th-inch “fine grind.”

• middles – Casing made from the large intestine.

• offal – The funky parts of an animal, like the heart, brain, liver, kidneys, and glands, sometimes used to make sausage. It’s “oh-full,” not “awful.”

• rounds – Casing made from the small intestine.

• wurst – It’s just the German word for sausage. We may often think of “wursts” to be cold, spreadable sausages, but they don’t have to be.