Sausage casings were traditionally various
parts of the animal digestive tube. Today,
most “natural” casings are the thin
connective-tissue layers of hog or sheep
intestine, stripped of their inner lining and
outer muscular layers by heat and pressure,
partly dried and packed in salt until they’re
filled. (Beef casings include some muscle.)
There are also manufactured sausage
containers made from animal collagen, plant
cellulose, and paper.
Cooking Fresh Sausages Since their
fragmented interior guarantees a certain kind
of tenderness, sausages are often cooked very
casually. But they benefit from being heated
as carefully as other fresh meats. Five
centuries ago, Platina remarked on the need to
cook liver sausage gently (see box, p. 169),
and said that another sausage was called
mortadella “because it is surely more pleasant
a little raw than overcooked.” Fresh sausages