Search for an old banger

Regular readers will know that one of my missions in life is to find bacon as it used to be, bacon which gives us a fry-up in its own fat rather than a boil-up in the watery white plegm inflicted on us by supermarkets.

I complained once to one of our leading supermarkets and was told that that they had regular surveys and that was how customers preferred it. They hadn't surveyed me or anyone with taste buds mind.

The real clue, I suspect, is not customer surveys but the cost of water and the amount supermarkets can squeeze into bacon and sell at £3-£4 a pound.

Bacon was part of our history, the great British fry-up, start with the bacon, then fry the egg in the bacon fat, then tomatoes followed by a slice of bread - oh and don't forget the sausages, which is what today's missive is really all about.

The great British banger is another casualty of modern life. There used to be a few award winning butchers, one in Knowle I recall, and there are still specialists, such as The Sausage Shop in Bath - do call in if you are ever down that way - but they are few and far between and the sausages not readily available. Click here for The Sausage Shop in Bath by the way.
If you are on a PC right click and open new tab or new window so you don't lose this page.

Meanwhile many of the sausages on offer in supermarkets, often quite expensive ones, can have an insipid filling or don't have the taste or texture you expect with the amount of meat they claim and often produce vast amounts of fat as they cook.

All right, for the health conscious, it is better the fat comes out rather than you end up eating it but it would be better still if it were not in there in the first place - which brings me to Debbie & Andrew's sausages. you can find their website by clicking here. Right click again to open a new window or page.

I bought a pack of their Harrogate 97 per cent pork jobs and they are bril - like sausages we remember as kids. They are probably nothing like the sausages we had as kids mind but they are what we like to remember we think we had. Real meaty bangers.

There is very little shrinkage in cooking and hardly any fat comes out because there is very little in there. The sausages are starting to appear in supermarkets - I found mine in Sainsbury's and according to Debbie & Andrew's website Morrison's also stock them - or they are available over the internet.

If you see them then give them a try.They are the best I have tried for a while so I reckon they are up around the top two or three of the supermarket sausages which is enough to give you half the great British breakfast.