www.bbc.co.uk You might imagine the idea for soy sausages formed in communal kitchens during the hippy era in the 1960s. My husband, three children and I moved to the country during this time and we made a walled garden with fruit trees, a large vegetable garden, and free range for fowl of all types roamed the property. In my large country kitchen in a house built 150 years before in Robe, South Australia, I made my own bread from stone-ground wheat on a wood stove. Wonderful times of freedom, where patched clothes were a badge of honor and poetry sprang to my lips while I fed troops of teenagers who spent most of their spare time surfing. My days were filled with love and the belief that life would always be that way.
But soy sausages were invented long before the years of letting it all hang out.
For more than fifteen years starting with WW2, the population of Great Britain suffered from lack of food during and after the war. Wartime rationing has been widely publicized, but did you know is that rationing in the UK went on until 1954? I lived in the lucky country Australia at the time, probably dubbed that way because the largest island and the smallest country was self-sufficient. But my English husband remembers how the Americans' saved the British people with powdered eggs, cans of Spam and sweets. He was 10 years old when he tasted his first banana. He thought it was wonderful.
I'm not sure many people nowadays could handle coupon cutting and trying to be inventive and thrifty in the kitchen.
As an aside, I read this morning that UK food banks have seen a shocking rise in the number of uses this year due to pension cut-backs and lack of money. Desperate people can apply for three day's supply of food in times of extreme need. They're supplied with things like rice, vegetables and biscuits.
But, Britain wasn't the only country in the past to lack food because of being cut off from imports. WW1 broke out in 1914 and the British government strangled the supplies of foodstuffs to Germany and its allies. As the blockade began to bite, starvation took hold in the population of Cologne. Konrad Adenauer, the mayor of Cologne, and later, the first German chancellor after World War Two, came up with the idea of replacement sausages.
But soy sausages were invented long before the years of letting it all hang out.
For more than fifteen years starting with WW2, the population of Great Britain suffered from lack of food during and after the war. Wartime rationing has been widely publicized, but did you know is that rationing in the UK went on until 1954? I lived in the lucky country Australia at the time, probably dubbed that way because the largest island and the smallest country was self-sufficient. But my English husband remembers how the Americans' saved the British people with powdered eggs, cans of Spam and sweets. He was 10 years old when he tasted his first banana. He thought it was wonderful.
I'm not sure many people nowadays could handle coupon cutting and trying to be inventive and thrifty in the kitchen.
As an aside, I read this morning that UK food banks have seen a shocking rise in the number of uses this year due to pension cut-backs and lack of money. Desperate people can apply for three day's supply of food in times of extreme need. They're supplied with things like rice, vegetables and biscuits.
But, Britain wasn't the only country in the past to lack food because of being cut off from imports. WW1 broke out in 1914 and the British government strangled the supplies of foodstuffs to Germany and its allies. As the blockade began to bite, starvation took hold in the population of Cologne. Konrad Adenauer, the mayor of Cologne, and later, the first German chancellor after World War Two, came up with the idea of replacement sausages.
www.channel4.com Adenauer researched ways of substituting available materials for scarce items, such as meat. After his experimental bread made of rice-flour, barley and corn flour, he turned to the search for a new sausage and came up with soy as the meatless ingredient. It was dubbed the Friedenswurst or peace sausage. Adenauer applied for a patent with the Imperial Patent Office in Germany but because it didn't comply to German regulations about the proper content of a sausage, his request was denied.
Curiously, he had better luck with Britain. King George V granted the soy sausage a patent on 26 June 1918.
Nowadays, meat-free sausages can be made from TVP (textured vegetable protein), tofu, Quorn or cheese mixed with breadcrumbs, flour and other ingredients. You can make vegetarian sausages in your own kitchen from a base of cereals and grains such as chickpeas, polenta and quinoa, mixing in other vegetables, herbs and spices.
As the old quote preaches: Necessity is the mother of invention.
Curiously, he had better luck with Britain. King George V granted the soy sausage a patent on 26 June 1918.
Nowadays, meat-free sausages can be made from TVP (textured vegetable protein), tofu, Quorn or cheese mixed with breadcrumbs, flour and other ingredients. You can make vegetarian sausages in your own kitchen from a base of cereals and grains such as chickpeas, polenta and quinoa, mixing in other vegetables, herbs and spices.
As the old quote preaches: Necessity is the mother of invention.
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