CASUAL COMMENTS

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19156, 12 November 1927, Page 15

CASUAL COMMENTS

—♦ SAUSAGES AND RECIPES. (SPECIALLY WBITTIS 108 THS JPBKSB.) [By Lzo Fanning.] Long ago, as a transitory inhabitant of various "Hash Towers," this commentator had a wish that all sausages would be the same sausage—the perfect sausage, as fixed and fundamental in its properties as an isosceles triangle which containeth ever that eternal sum of two right angles and hath a perpotual equality of angles at the base, despite modern improvements of old Euclid. Consciously or unconsciously, the cause of many a boarder's shift is the quest of the* perfect sausage, the proudest product of the small-goods-man's art and craft, for there is as much craft as art in your ideal sausage. He is the elder brother (but may be the younger) to the saveloy and the apoplectic-looking polony, and is more deserving of respect, when he is perfect (which is, alas, too seldom). * * * Yearning for that soothing succulent cylinder of many a gourmand's dream, the writer oft sighed for a State standardisation of the Sausage. Much less important things had been standardised in many countries. Why not the Sausage! New Zealand has the right meat and the right—(whatever the other things are), and the right Science to suggest the right recipe, or at least to indicate the right lines of research and provide a scholarship to enable some bright young fellow to deliver the goods. * * # It is the recipe that matters in these days of prescriptions for perfection. Take care of the recipe, and the Sausage • will take care of itself. Imperfect people of to-day are apt to think that the big push for perfection did not get into full swing until after the Great War. To confound that notion the writer has in some forgotten corner of his "Den" a dusty bundle of manuscript which has lain at rest since the ink dried fifteen years or so ago. It is a whimsical survey of modern life, staged in a Merworld. One of the characters is a Morsausage, who has a semi-official but unhonoured and unrespected role as chief dispenser of recipes for anything and everything,from colds in the head to broken hearts. Things went sudienly wrong in the Merworld, and the Mersausage had such a congestion of recipes that he burst, and only his floppy skin was found for the inquest and burial in the Cemetery of Deadest Things. Well, the Mersausage would not have been created if the recipe business had not been in big blast at the time of his birth. * * * A few years later, the writer had a notion of putting out a series of "Sausage Recipes," covering business, politics, poetry, horse-racing, football, wooing, and so on—but did not get further than a fragment of "Political Sausage." Here it is:— Have a thick skin. If it is thin and tender, take care to toughen it by the exercises set out in the Sausage Manual (not yet published). Chop up an Official Year Book and use portions of it according to the particular quality and quantity of sausage required for a certain kind of audience. Put in plenty of platitude, dressed as nicely aB possible. Have a goodly ingredient of promises, particularly if the sausage is for consumption during a pre-election session or an election campaign. Do not forget that time-honoured stand-by (which belongs to all ages and all nations, all creeds and all colours). "Progress with economy." • When mixing, sprinkle liberally some essence of emotion (in respect to widows and orphans and the friendless or helpless folk in. general). Shake in some salt of borrowed wit. Caution: When you have six of anything in the sausage always have half a dozen against it, to make a balanced ration. Put everything through the orthodox Compromise Machine (patented by all Parties; beware of imitations). Simmer carefully in olive oil, and keep the home fires burning while the sausage is turning and re-turning. * * # There is no secret of success to-day; it is all in the recipes, which America's correspondence schools supply for any purpose in life. First of all, the ambitious bricklayer, who has become tired of making money, and aches to be literary, is told to "send no money," and he is soon paying to become a poet; and the born poet is paying to become a plumber and make his fortune. * # # Here butts in the cheap philosopher: "Can tho Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Can the leopard do this by taking a dose of medicine?" Such questions might have been right enough long ago, but they would be an insult to Science to-day. If that wizard of botany, Luther Burbank, had given as much attention to leopards as he did to blackberries and mangel-wurzels he would have turned their spots into crossword puzzles, and might have turned the leopard into something .good for Christians to eat. The leopards are not out of the wood yet; Science may have an eye on them- * # * Let not a trustful lady believe that all winning ways can come from the magic contents of the vanity bag (which can. be useful enough when occasion serves), nor from the flash and glitter of nobly-moulded silk. There are recipes for charm—recipes which have nothing to do with powder-dabs, lip-sticks or bottles. You simply read carefully the advice of feminine writers (or do men get slyly into this business?), and acquire that indefinite | charm which makes ambassadors yield secrets of State. This is the cheapest way to get that adorable charm which has inspired half of the world's poets and has made the other half silly. * # * As a fitting finale to this rambling patter and chatter about sausage, here is the stuff which the Merchief sang to the Mersausage:— Oh, listen to the Sausage alng A lullaby of knowledge. In all the world there's not a tiling Escapes the Sausage College. It wouldn't, It couldn't Escape the Sausage College, If you desire to bo supreme And hold a Kaiser bossage, The recipe to shape your dream Is given by the Sausage. You shouldn't, You couldn't Omit to ask the Sausage. The books can rot—and, never fear, They're not the slightest lossage, If we have etill the chance to hear The wisdom of the Sausage, The hearty, The smarty, The mystic Mister Sausage.