The Lorne sausage, also known as square sausage or slice sausage is a traditional food Scottish food item made from ground meat, rusk and spices. Although termed a sausage, no Sausage casing is used to hold the meat in shape, hence it is usually served as square slices from a formed block. It is a common component of the traditional Scottish breakfast.
Name
It is thought that the sausage is named after the region of Lorne in
Argyll;
[ advertisements for 'Lorne Sausage' have been found in newspapers as early as 1892.] This was long before Scottish comedian Tommy Lorne, after whom the sausage has been said to be named, became well-known: he was born in 1890.
History
The exact origins of the Lorne sausage remain unclear. It is often eaten in the Scottish variant of the full breakfast or in a breakfast roll. The sausage is also an appropriate size to make a sandwich using a slice from a plain loaf of bread cut in half.
Preparation
Sausage meat (beef, pork or more usually a combination of the two) is minced with rusk and spices, packed into a rectangular tin with a cross-section of about square, and sliced about thick before cooking. Square sausage has no casing, unlike traditional sausages, and must be tightly packed into the mould to hold it together; slices are often not truly square.[
]
Occasionally, it has a length of caseless black pudding or haggis through the middle, in the style of a gala pie.
See also