Another giant step for mankind is imminent and Works Well readers will be informed before anyone else. The new technology resolves a problem British sausage-eaters have wrestled with for decades – the moment when the object of their desires ceases to be a cylinder and opts to become a banana.There are no doubt good reasons why a sausage, sensing the heat of the frying pan, curls up as if returning to the womb. But for once the physics doesn’t interest me. I am concerned only with the irritating necessity of rotating an assymetrical body through three 90-deg. steps to ensure equally distributed browning (as evidence of having been cooked).
And yes I know such browning can be achieved by baking or roasting the sausages tightly fitted into a small tray with a raised rim. Mrs B. has often done this and I like the result. But such sausages differ from those fried; for one thing the skin is hardened, for another some of the juice dries up.
My solution is hardly revolutionary. Imagine the business end of a small garden fork without the handle. Six 6-in. long x 3 mm wide tines, just over 1 in. apart. The circular cross-section tines, welded up from stainless steel, are inserted longitudinally into the sausages providing an inflexible “backbone” to each. Rotation becomes a simple finger job. I called Downey Engineering of Pontrilas (Tel: 01981-240427) and asked if they were interested. They said they were “provided we get one the sausages”. Watch this space.
