by Tom Stobart
[Sardine – French: sardine German: Sardine Italian: sardina Spanish: sardine]
SASSAFRAS (Sassafras albidum) is a North American tree of the laurel family; it yields an essential oil that is present throughout the plant but is most concentrated in the root bark. It lends its flavour to root beer and to sassafras tea, an infusion of the bark, leaves or buds that was popular in parts of the US as a tea substitute in the early 19th century. The dried leaves are used to make *filé powder.
[Sassafras – French: sassafras German: Sassafras Italian: sassafrasso Spanish: sasafrás]
SATÉ. See peanut.
SATSUMA. See orange.
SATURATED SOLUTION. A solution containing the maximum amount of salt, sugar, soda or any other substance that can be dissolved in a volume of water. If more of the substance is added, it will lie undissolved on the bottom of the vessel. However, the quantity that will dissolve increases with temperature. Sometimes there is only a small rise in solubility as with salt, but at other times the increase is spectacular, as with saltpetre.
SAUCISSE. A small French or Swiss sausage (as opposed to the large *saucisson). Saucisses are usually 2.5-4 cm (1-1½in) in diameter and fresh rather than cured, so that they are for cooking and eating hot. They include French equivalents of chorizos (saucisses d’Espagne) and Frankfurters (saucisses de Francfort and saucisses de Strasbourg). Saucisses de campagne, country sausages, are made of mixed lean pork and fat bacon. They are dried for up to a week and contain seasonings that vary widely according to charcutier and locality. Poached gently for 20 minutes rather than fried, they are used in heavy soups and stews for the winter. Sausages of greater refinement include saucisses de Périgord, with black truffles and white wine, and saucisses au champagne, lightly spiced and flavoured with champagne and black truffles. Saucisses de Toulon, which contain meat that is coarsely chopped rather than minced, are the correct sausages to use in the regional cassoulet. Saucisse en brioche is sausage baked in a brioche paste, something like a very large and delicate sausage roll, which is sold by the slice. It is warmed and eaten as a first course.
SAUCISSON. Large or very large sausage from France or Switzerland. Saucissons are often supported in nets or bound. They are salted, dried and usually smoked but not cooked. Before they are ready to eat, they are kept for four or, better still, six months. Like cheese, they are now mainly a factory product and are matured, sometimes with the help of moulds growing on the skin. They are sliced and sold by weight usually for eating cold as an hors d’oeuvre or in sandwiches. The many types have minor variations in texture and content. Many are named after their places of origin. The odd one out is *cervelas, which is a boiling sausage and intermediate between saucisses and saucissons in size.
SAUERKRAUT is shredded, lightly salted cabbage which has fermented and is preserved by the *lactic acid from the fermentation. lt seems probable that it was discovered by the Gauls, who were in the habit of salting food for winter, but the Romans knew the rudiments of making silage (which is animal fodder preserved for the winter by lactic acid fermentation). At any rate, Sauerkraut was in use in the Middle Ages. Cabbages and pigs were staples that allowed survival in a hard winter. ‘Chi semena le verze e un porco ingrassa par l’inverno al se Ia passa...’ (roughly: he who sows cabbages and fattens a pig will get through the winter) is the Italian version of a proverb that was relevant for much of Europe. Sauerkraut was important, though, in central and eastern Europe, where the ground was often snowed under. Until the arrival of the potato in the 18th century, the other main standby was the beetroot. Sauerkraut had the then unrecognized virtue of containing adequate vitamin C. Captain Cook credited the good health of his crews to it long before vitamins were ever heard of.
Western European languages all derive their names for this food from the German (e.g. the French choucroute), and Germany and Austria are the centre of the Sauerkraut tradition, although it goes west into Alsace and Lorraine, east into Poland and Russia, and south into Hungary, Italy and the Balkans. As a dish of any refinement, Sauerkraut doubtless had to wait for the development of fine and suitable cabbage varieties. In the past, it was widely made on farms, but some areas and villages were specially famous for the high quality which they produced. Sauerkraut needs space and cool cellars; making it at home can be rather smelly. It can be bought in cans (which mostly come from Holland) or loose from the tub in delicatessens. There are many variations; most commonly, it is flavoured with juniper berries or caraway seed, but some Sauerkraut may contain fennel seed and other ingredients like grated quince or beetroot, which colour it respectively yellow and red. (In Russia, it is also quite common to salt and ferment grated beetroot in its own right).
Sauerkraut is made in a straight-sided tub with a loose top and a false lid that fits down inside it. The cabbages are first weighed and 1½% of their weight of salt is measured out. Some recipes advocate up to 4% salt, but 1½% is more usual. The cabbages are cleaned, washed and finely shredded. The barrel and its lids are scalded, and a white cotton cloth large enough to cover the false lid is sterilized, together with a large, non-porous stone to act as a weight.
The bottom of the tub is usually first covered with a few whole cabbage leaves and then the shredded cabbage is firmly packed down in layers, each sprinkled with salt and with salt on top. The tub ought to be about two-thirds full. It is covered with the cloth, topped with the wooden false lid, weighted down with the stone. In a day, the false lid should be immersed in liquid extracted from the cabbage. Fermentation will begin in which the sugars in the cabbage are turned to lactic acid. Depending on the temperature, the Sauerkraut should be ready in about 3 weeks or a little more. The surface of the liquid will become covered with a scum of yeasts or fungi which should be skimmed off. A sample of the Sauerkraut may be taken with a wooden fork for testing. When the cabbage is ready to eat, the liquid on top is taken off with a wooden bowl (and makes a good soup), the required amount of Sauerkraut is taken, and the cloth, which has first to be rinsed in boiling water is put back with the false lid and weight on top.
The liquid may be topped up with plain cold water, salt water or white wine. The latter, of course, adds to the flavour. Once fermented, the tub of Sauerkraut has to be kept in a cool cellar.
There are many ways of cooking Sauerkraut. First, it should be tasted and washed briefly in a strainer held under the cold tap if it seems too acid. (In Austria they like it sour, in Germany less so.) It should then be teased out until it is free of lumps.
Flavourings which can be added include apple, garlic, onion, bay, juniper berries, caraway seed, white wine, fried bacon and bacon rind. A typical way is to fry diced bacon crisp with a little chopped onion, hen to add about half the weight of water that you have Sauerkraut, a large piece of smoked bacon rind, a small clove of garlic (unpeeled but crushed), a bay leaf, a few juniper berries, a pinch of caraway seeds, a few peppercorns, and salt if needed. Cook slowly for 30-60 minutes, in which time the water should be absorbed – how long it takes depends on the Sauerkraut: do not cook it to a mush. If a lot of liquid is left, thicken it with a little cornflour or potato, but not too much. Water in which bacon has been boiled can be used if it is handy, as it often is in restaurants. Serve Sauerkraut with boiled bacon, frankfurters or other smoked sausage, bread dumplings and potatoes. The Chinese also make forms of pickled cabbage, as do the Koreans with *kimchi.
[Sauerkraut – French: choucroute German: Sauerkraut Italian: salcrautte Spanish: chucruta]
SAUSAGE. The word comes from the Latin salsus – salted. Originally, sausages were a means of organizing and preserving the blood and the odd bits of the pig that were left over after the hams and bacon sides had been taken. These bits were mixed with salt, saltpetre, herbs and spices, enclosed in sections of carefully cleaned gut, dried, smoked and hung in a cool place. As sausages, the scraps would keep good for months. Otherwise they had to be eaten immediately, an unnecessary luxury in a hard pressed community. An added bonus was that the sausages would
age and mature like cheese; they actually improved in flavour with keeping. Sausages inevitably came to be made not just for survival but also purely for gastronomic delight (apparently becoming so popular in ancient Rome that at one point they were banned). Over the ages, they have attracted much culinary attention, with the finest spices and the best cuts of meat being put into them. However, they were also a godsend for the less scrupulous butchers. As one early 20th century cookery book advises, ‘the great advantage of home made sausages over bought ones is that in the former case one knows what is in them.’
Many sausages have long since lost their original peasant functions: they are often for eating fresh and some are even skinless. In Britain, fresh sausages are usual, but then the British culinary heritage lacks variety in its sausages. There are the university variations on the standard British sausage or banger – the Oxford and Cambridge sausages – as well as sausages of beef, veal, mutton and even turkey but they all have to be eaten fresh and cooked, never raw. The British have no tradition of matured, well hung sausages. Rare recipes for dried sausages prove the rule, because they are clearly foreign in origin (e.g.Yorkshire polony). Some British sausages are called ‘puddings’ – the black puddings and the white puddings, not to mention the ‘great chieftain o’ the pudding race,’ the *haggis, which can certainly be claimed as a sausage.
Sausages intended to be eaten fresh should not be kept for more than a few days in the refrigerator (although they may be frozen). Commercial sausages often contain preservatives, because their contents offer ideal growing conditions for micro-organisms, including nasty ones like botulism bacteria. Sausages made of raw and uncured pork should always be thoroughly cooked. On the other hand, sausages that are bought already cooked, even if they are intended to be eaten fresh (like frankfurters and black puddings), can be eaten safely cold. A few cooked sausages (e.g. mortadella), will keep for a time if they remain uncut. Rather strangely, in the really long keepers (e.g. salame, chorizo) the meat is uncooked. Sausages made of raw pork are perfectly safe (like raw ham) if they have been properly hung to mature. Any harmful organisms, such as those of *trichinosis, have had time to be destroyed by the salt. One might say the meat has been ‘cooked’ by the salt and saltpetre content.
Types of sausage for keeping are meant to be hung in a cool, dry place, so that air can circulate all round them- never against a wall. Any cut surface is best protected by a piece of oiled paper. Once sliced, the sausage has to be kept in the least cold part of the refrigerator and must be well wrapped to stop it drying out. The flavour does not improve in these conditions – it is best to buy only what you need for immediate use. Sliced sausage, such as mortadella, bought shrink-wrapped in packets from the supermarket cold cabinet, is usually a convenience food for those who value convenience more than food.
Every European country can offer a range of sausages, some of which are national and local specialities, while others are home-produced versions of sausages which originated abroad (a large number of Scandinavian sausages fall into this category). Some types like frankfurters and salami seem to be made in some form almost everywhere in Europe; less international sausages may spread from their homeland to neighbouring countries and change a little on the way, as in the case of the Spanish *chorizo which becomes the chorizo Basquais and the saucisse d’Espagne in France and the chourico in Portugal. America has adopted the sausage varieties brought in by immigrants from Europe and in some cases has changed them -the Italian Bologna sausage has given birth to a whole range of American descendants. There are also Chinese sausages, which are made of cured pork and tend to contain sugar as well as salt and spices.
Sausages are an important part of French charcuterie. Although the basic number of types is not great, there are hosts of local varieties, often distinguished by the name of the town or locality where they originated, and some with names that are quite unknown except where they are made. The differences between local types are usually small; the excellence of a sausage will depend mainly on the charcutier who makes it. French sausages that need cooking are two made with intestines,*andouilles and *andouillettes, the chubby * boudin blanc and boudin noir (the equivalent of*black pudding),*crépinettes and gayettes (which could be said to approximate to the English faggots), merguez (a short, spicy sausage for grilling that is Algerian in origin), *cervelas and a variety of *saucisses. Matured and usually large sausages are *saucissons.
The most famous matured sausages of all come from Italy and are plurally known as *salami; they vary from the slick, factory produced versions from Milan to rough, gnarled-looking peasant varieties. Also for eating cold and finely sliced, often as part of a mixed antipasto are sausages in which the ingredients are not chopped or minced but which are made with pieces of cured meat – notable examples are bresaola, coppa and culatello. The most famous cooked sausage for eating as a cold cut is *mortadella from Bologna. Small fresh sausages for cooking and eating hot are mainly known as *salsiccie. There is also the Italian equivalent of *black pudding, sanguinaccio. Two specialities of Modena and the surrounding area are boiling sausages with a filling that includes pork skin from the head and snout to produce a gelatinous texture. They are *cotechino, which comes in a sausage skin and *zampone, which is a boned and stuffed pig’s foot. Italian sausages may bear official tags made of metal to indicate the meat content: S for pork (darne suino) only, SB for pork and beef (suino and bovina), O for mutton (ovino) and E for horse meat (equino).
Although Italy is credited with having the finest sausages, Germany can claim to be the sausage eating centre of the world, and neighbouring countries in all directions share much of the German passion for sausages. There is no good meal that is more easily prepared than a selection of sliced German sausages with black bread, German mustard, pickled cucumbers and German beer. Sausages for eating cold (either sliced or, in the case of the softer varieties, spread) include *Bierwurst, Blutwurst (*black pudding) and its Thuringian variant Rotwurst (which contains black pepper and large lumps of meat), *cervelat, and finely ground Extrawurst; Leberwurst (*liver sausage), Mettwurst and Teewurst are often soft and spreadable. Landjäger are unusual in being pressed into a square shape; they are cured, smoked and dried sausages for eating raw. Raw sausages for grilling are *Bratwurst, but the hot sausages most foreigners associate with Germany are smoked, poached sausages eaten with Sauerkraut, although this is equally a dish from eastern France – surprisingly, more Sauerkraut is consumed in France than in Germany. The internationally famous names are the *frankfurter and the Austrian *Wienerwurst. German sausages, like those from France and Italy, have a plethora of regional and local names. Many are described in Antony and Araminta Hippisley Coxe’s The Book of the Sausage (Pan).
In any type of sausage, there is always great variation from maker to maker. Governments may define sausage types and may legislate to specify the permitted constituents (how much horse can go into a beef sausage before it becomes a horse sausage), but wide differences in texture and taste are allowed. You can learn about sausages, as about any food, only by trying and tasting boldly.
[Sausage – French: saucisse German: Wurst Italian: salsiccia Spanish: salchicha]
SAUSAGE SKIN is traditionally made from the cleaned guts of pigs, sheep or cattle, but because of the continual battle for standardization and mechanization fought by the big manufacturers, there are now skins which do not vary in size and are made of reconstituted collagen (a sort of dried jelly), cellulose, and even plastic. Small quantities of skins suitable for home use can usually be ordered through the local butcher. They range in diameter from narrow sheep casings for little chipolatas, to wide beef bungs for mortadella or other large sausages. Real skins are preserved in salt- usually dry but sometimes in brine – and will keep indefinitely. When needed, skins should be soaked in fresh water for twelve hours or so, and washed out with running water (using the sausage skins like a hosepipe on the tap).
Preparing your own sausage skins is a fiddly job (commerci
ally, they are cleaned by machine), and is hardly something to tackle except on the farm, as it involves washing out the intestines, cutting them in suitable lengths, dissecting away the mesentery and fat, turning the guts inside out over a stick, and scraping off the slimy inner lining. This comes away more easily if the skins are first soaked in frequent changes of clean water for a couple of days, as this allows the glandular lining to soften. However, in Spain, where the annual matanza (pig killing) is still a lingering custom, the cleaning is done with salt and lemon juice, all on the same day, as meat from a pig killed in the morning has to be minced, salted, spiced and packed into sausages before night. Indeed, in primitive conditions the job had always to be done without delay. However, skins made in the old way look somewhat heavy and opaque. The commercial skins of today are more elegant and are often bleached for the sake of appearance.
[Sausage skin – French: peau à saucisse German: Wursthaut Italian: pelle di salsiccia]
SAUTEEING. From the French sauter (to jump), this is cooking food in hot fat while shaking or tossing the ingredients. The correct pan is a sautoir, which looks like a frying pan with upright, slightly higher than normal sides, to prevent the food falling out when it is being shaken.
SAVELOY is etymologically the English equivalent of*cervelas. It is made commercially with finely minced cured pork plus cereal and is smoked. Heated in the deep fryer, saveloys are one of the less delicious sidelines of some fish and chip shops. The home-made saveloy, however, is doubtless a far, far better thing.
SAVORY. A labiate herb that is little used in English cooking, but is of some importance in France, Switzerland and Germany, where it is traditionally used for flavouring beans. There are two species commonly grown, both Mediterranean plants – summer savory (Satureja hortensis) and winter savory (S. montana),which is generally regarded as the less good of the two.The taste is vaguely like thyme, but much more bitter and biting; savory is a distinctive herb, to be used with discretion, as you can easily have too much of it. In Provence (as poivre d’âne) and in the Basses Alpes in France, savory is the traditional covering for the small white Saint Marcellin cheeses (although some are now covered in rosemary).