Casing the Joint
Mr. Orange –
What is the “artificial casing” used to contain modern sausage REALLY made of? My personal theory is that it’s plastic, but I’d like to think that the food industry isn’t so obviously damaging my digestive system.
Thanks!
Larry! Larry! Take me to the hospital, Larry! I’m dying! I ate a plastic sausage and if I don’t get to the hospital, I’m gonna die! Just drop me off by the emergency room, Larry! I won’t tell ‘em who you are, I promise!
Wait, no, wrong guy.
Truth is, some casings are made of plastic, but if you eat them, you don’t know how to peel your pepperoni. Plastic casings are those “papers” on certain deli sausages that everyone knows you’re supposed to take off before you eat your meat. Or is that taking it too far?
The casings you’re probably thinking of are the ones that are around most weiners (oops) and other sausages you’re supposed to bite into (stop that!). Those casings are called collagen casings, and they’re made of exactly what they say they are—collagen.
Collagen is a type of connective tissue in all animals; it’s the stuff in braised meats that melts down under low heat and makes the dish so tender. It’s the stuff in bones that causes a well-made meat stock to gel up when it cools. It’s the stuff that jiggles your gelatin desserts. It’s the stuff that makes your skin stretchy and that vain individuals have injected into their faces when their own hide starts to cure.
Indeed, the skin is a very good source of collagen, and it’s from the back of the skin (corium, aka dermis) that casings manufacturers yield the collagen to make edible synthetic casings. These casings are made from a very tender, malleable, but edible part of the animal, though they have been cooked down and processed to the point of being almost completely removed from their origin. They last forever and come in standard sizes, allowing sausage makers to make identically-sized products. Their main appeal to much of the population is their predictable consistency and gentle yield to the pressure of a bite, and that they never assisted in peristalsis.
Your other option for edible sausage casings is a natural (read: intestinal) casing. These casings are cleaned and flushed before they are filled, and should not contain any fecal product. They are available in a variety of general sizes based on their animal of origin, but natural variation dictates that they are not of uniform size and appearance.
Diameter Sizes of Various Natural Casings:
- Sheep: 3/4″ - 1″ (frankfurter)
- Hog: 1″ - 1 1/2″ (bratwurst)
- Beef Round: ~1 3/4″ (pepperoni)
- Beef Middle: ~2 1/2″ (salami)
- Beef Bung: ~4″ (brunschwager)
Personally, I don’t mind either casing, because I think sausage is such a great invention. It makes delicious that which otherwise might not have been palatable, and assists in making the most out of a slaughter. If you can abide by the consumption of animals in general, there is no reason for you to shun the consumption of sausage. Bits and scraps never tasted so good.
Have a question concerning cuisine and/or the kitchen? Email me! I’ll respond in a future post.
October 11th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
[...] Everything in a hot dog is edible; otherwise manufacturers wouldn’t be allowed to put them on the market. In general terms, a hot dog is a sausage made of a 5-4-3 forcemeat: 5 parts meat, 4 parts fat, 3 parts ice or ice water, plus seasonings stuffed into a casing. As with any sausage, it is the recipient of, well, the “less glamorous” parts of the animal: the parts that are more difficult to sell when they’re packaged as themselves: which is to say, the various scraps left over after the animal has been segmented into saleable cuts, etc. If a weiner includes organs (heart or kidney, eg), the organ and the breed of animal it came from must be named in the ingredients list. Kosher hot dogs can only be made from animals and cuts that are considered to be kosher: which is to say, in the case of hot dogs, they are all-beef franks from an appropriately-slaughtered bovine (killed by an observant Jew with an extremely sharp knife with a single cut to the neck of an animal that has not been frightened) and all blood and blood vessels have been removed from the meat before it is ground to become the hot dog. You may have seen the ads for kosher hot dogs on TV which brag about how they don’t have any butts. This is because kosher law dictates that the meat in their hot dogs does not come from the hindquarters of the animal. This relates to Genesis 32:32, which is perhaps least confusingly translated in the New American Standard version of the Bible, “Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh in the sinew of the hip.” Basically, it means unless the sciatic nerve is removed, the muscle is unclean according to kosher laws. [...]
January 13th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Great article.
I’m looking for vegetable sausage casing. Where is it obtainable?
ThankHaroon