Miss Florence WHITE (' Mary Evelyn ') : ' Oxford Sausages '
SAUSAGES must be about the earliest cooked food on record. They are mentioned in the first cookery book, Athenaeus' Dinner-table Philosophers (A.D. 228), and there was a Greek play called the Orya (The Sausage) produced in 500 B.C. Thus, sausages have given laughs to comedy audiences for 2,500 years. They are more popular than ever ; there are over 150 varieties, and in America nearly , a thousand million pounds are
- made every year. But if we are to believe Prof. Saintsbury , has probably the best palate in England, sausages are sadly on the decline. He has not, he says, tasted a sausage worthy of the tradition since the early 'eighties, and in particular he laments the complete decease of ' that admirable variety, the Oxford sausage, much herbed, skinless, and moulded into sausage-shape only just before cooking.' Let us hope that Miss White's talk will encourage a resurrection of this delicacy.