Gilbert and Sullivan Archive

GRAND DUKE DISCUSSION


SAUSAGE ROLLS

Some in the United States may not be familiar with Sausage-Rolls. However, they sound quite similar to "Pig-in-a-blanket." DAVID DUFFEY offers this recipe.

1 lb sausage.

For the pastry: 1/4 lb dripping; 1 teaspoon baking powder, 3/4 lb flour. Cold water to mix.

Remove sausage skins, cut pastry into squares; put a sausage on each piece, wet three edges, fold over, nip together. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes in the middle of the oven.

However: the sausage must be made from the substance known as "sausage meat", which is a pinkish mixture of ground-up pig meat, bread, cereal and "other substances". This mixture bears nothing in comparison with wurst varieties of Germanic origin. Sausage meat is also used to encase a hardboiled egg to make what we call a "scotch egg."

ROBERT JONES: They're greasy in Australia, and usually smothered with tomato sauce.

JAMES TAPPIN: Sausage rolls are a veritable minefield gastronomique, and can vary widely from greasy, tasteless lumps to tasty morsels. There is a baker in Cheadle, Staffs, whose sausage rolls are a legend in the neighbourhood and elsewhere. He regularly sends parcels out to various destinations UK and worldwide.

BILL SNYDER: In our semistaged Grand Duke we had a few props here and there and I thought it might be interesting to have Ludwig gulp down a few as the chorus watches in nauseous amazement. Our props mistress, also a fine mezzo in the chorus, was a vegetarian with a particular aversion to pork. Her faux sausage rolls were a perfectly acceptable stage version. But her face onstage, contemplating the actual ingesting of the sausage roll was priceless!



Page created 23 March 1998