Oxford
It is not a comforting reflection that our two most ancient and renowned universities, with all their scholarship, all the wisdom of the classics to command, and all the heights of philosophy beneath their feet, have been able to add to the enjoyments of the table nothing more than an humble sausage. What is learning, what is science, if this be its farthest reach to evolve only a sausage from the inner consciousness? Each University has one; but Oxford has certainly the best of it. Whereas both of these great schools chop logic and pork, Oxford in addition chops veal and the fat of beeves.
Oxford Sausage. - Mince one pound each of prime young pork, veal, and the freshest beef fat, all cleared of skin and sinews; steep the crumb of a twopenny loaf in Oxtau It milk and water; grate a little zest of lemon, also a little nutmeg; chop a few sage leaves and some thyme; and pound a small quantity of long pepper and salt. Mix all together and press it down close in a pan for use. may be stuffed in skins like other sausage meat; but is generally rolled out as wanted, and either fried in fresh butter of a fine brown colour or broiled over a clear fire. This is what ages of learning have taught the wise men of the Isis to fix upon as the only preparation of food to which the name of Oxford may worthily be linked.
Oxford Punch.-The great characteristic of this punch is its having a quantity of calf's foot jelly dissolved in it. The wise men of the Isis respect the name of their township, and have decreed that the kine from which it takes its name should not only ford their river, but should also enter into their sausages in the form of beef fat and youthful undergraduate veal, and should, in the frisky form of calf's feet, gambol into their punch.
A three-meat fresh sausage, bound with bread rather than rusk and seasoned in the eighteenth-century manner. The instructions are compressed and the text is garbled in one spot; the notes below sort out the quantities.
- The garbled line"Oxtau It milk and water" is a printer's or scanner's corruption. The sense appears to be simply to steep the bread crumb in milk and water, and the stray "It" belongs to the sentence that follows; whether a word of the original is hidden in the corruption cannot be told.
- A twopenny loafAn unhelpfully vague measure, since a loaf bought for twopence varied in size by place and period. A twopenny loaf would have given rather more crumb than a modern cook wants here; for three pounds of meat, start with about 4 oz of crustless bread soaked in milk and water and squeezed out, and judge the texture.
- Beef fat"The freshest beef fat" means suet, the hard kidney fat, not trimmings. A butcher can supply it; if not, substitute pork back fat. Keep the fat very cold when mincing or it smears and the sausage cooks greasy.
- Long pepperPiper longum, a relative of black pepper with a hotter, sweeter finish. It is still sold by spice merchants and is worth seeking out, but black pepper is a reasonable stand-in. Salt at about 1.5 percent of the meat weight, roughly 3 teaspoons of fine salt for three pounds.
- Grind and mixMince the meats and fat separately through a coarse plate, then mix in the seasonings and soaked bread until the mass turns tacky. Fry a teaspoonful and taste before committing the batch; the sage and lemon zest are easy to overdo.
- Skinless is the pointOxford sausage is traditionally sold and cooked without a casing, which is why the book says it is "rolled out as wanted." Shape into fingers, dust lightly with flour, and chill firm before cooking or they slump in the pan.
- CookingFry gently in butter over medium heat rather than hot; the veal dries and the bread scorches. Cook to 160F internal, about 10 to 12 minutes with turning.
- KeepingThe direction to "press it down close in a pan for use" belongs to a cold larder. Refrigerate the raw mixture and cook it within two days, or freeze it in portions.
- YieldAbout three pounds of sausage meat, or 12 to 16 sausages.
Oxford sausage was a recognised regional type by the eighteenth century, distinguished from most English sausage by the addition of veal and beef suet to the pork, and by being sold skinless. The name had literary currency too: The Oxford Sausage, a collection of comic verse by university men, appeared in 1764 and is generally attributed to Thomas Warton, so the joke about learning producing nothing but a sausage was already a well-worn one when this book took it up. Kettner's, published in 1877 and largely the work of the journalist E. S. Dallas, is organised as an alphabetical dictionary of the table and rarely misses a chance for this sort of dry aside; the "wise men of the Isis" are Oxford dons, the Isis being the name given to the Thames as it runs through the city. The claim about Oxford Punch containing dissolved calf's foot jelly is offered as a remark rather than a recipe, and no method is given for it here.