Cumberland Sausage

Stephen and I are on holiday in the Lake District with 14 friends. As you can imagine, catering for that number of people is potentially challenging but, on the first evening, the solution was obvious: Cumbrian sausage from the local butcher, Harrisons of Wigton.

When I first heard of this plan, I idly wondered just how many sausages were required to to feed 16 people but I was quickly corrected – Cumbrian sausage isn’t served in individual portions and is purchased in either feet or yards. Unfortunately, I didn’t find this out until later so I’m not sure how long our sausage was, I do know it was 15lbs in weight though.

According to Wikipedia, the distinctive feature of Cumberland sausage is that the meat is chopped, not minced, giving the sausage a chunky texture. Having eaten quite a lot of it, I can confirm that this is indeed the case. What was also evident was the softness of the meat; it almost melted and was difficult to cut in slices, we used scissors instead of a knife to serve but I’m not sure if this is traditional or not. It was a very different product to the Cumberland style sausage I’ve eaten before and all the better for it, hopefully we’ll be able to find some to take home with us when we leave.