In pursuit of the perfect sausage

A moderately rosy retrospective of my home county

Sausages are like alcoholic drinks. You get Krug sausages and you get antifreeze sausages and it depends on location and let’s say, discernment. The range and quality is enormous. Lincolnshire is the Champagne region for sausages. Sadly most people, especially if they have had the misfortune to be born South of Retford may never know the delights of a good, artfully made sausage. In Lincolnshire, we do. (I must qualify that by admitting that I no longer live in the county of my birth but I am near enough to raid the butcher’s shops from time to time.)

Perhaps you are the person I want to talk to. Perhaps your quest for the perfect sausage has brought you here. If this is the case, your sojourn is at an end. You have reached the source, the mountain, the pinnacle; in fact, Xanadu. (Welcome to the Pleasuredome)

But before you learn the secret, let me tell you a bit about Lincolnshire. First of all you might have to look it up on a map - OS Explorers 273 and 282 will help.

It has its problems

Having oriented things you might be wondering what’s in Lincolnshire and why the Guardian never features it as a tourist destination. There are a lot of fallacies tied up with this county. The first is that it is flat. Yes, a lot of it is flat, but quite a bit of it isn’t. The bit that isn’t is called The Wolds and it is pretty much the Land that Time Forgot.

Another fallacy is that it is full of Fascist Brexiteers (In that respect, The Guardian does give it a mention), but that is like deciding that all Londoners are all Fascist Brexiteers based on a sample of Black Cab Drivers. It is true that Boston, in the Southern half of the county, which by the way is the second largest county in England, is one of the most Brexity places in England. It has massive problems such as Murder and under-the-counter contraband, linked to the settling of Eastern Europeans. It has been named Murder Capital of England (13 murders between 2017 and 2022 and the names of those caught and convicted underline this sad fact). Exploding illicit stills and dirty bakeries add to the heady mix.

Then there is Obesity, which is a largely indigene phenomenon and the town has been officially awarded the dubious accolade of the fat capital of England. Local scrotes add to the poisonous mix. The reasons for the problems though are complex. It is true that the murder rate has shot up exponentially since the migrant workers showed up. Also the crime rate. But the reason they are in Boston in the first place is economic. They came for jobs and the local land owners and farmers were more than happy to pay peanuts, offer poor and unsafe working conditions (workers have died because of it, including a Lithuanian land worker and mother of two in 2014) and the estate agents were more than happy to pack cheap housing to the rafters for greedy landlords. Very little attention was paid at the time to the social implications, because it was highly convenient for the people who run the town to turn a blind eye and take the money. And Bostonians prefer not to do back-breaking agricultural work.

Skegness is oft cited as a place of awfulness too. Again the reasons are myriad but Skegness is only one of dozens of formerly smart Victorian seaside resorts throughout the land that have become utter dumps.

On the whole this kind problem is isolated, for the simple reason that there is a lot of land and a lot of small villages, particularly in The Wolds, that have remained the same for centuries.

Hedgerows that wibble and weave in the wind. Sward that flutters and undulates like an ocean. Vistas with no end - shimmering in the coruscating summer air.

Try Somersby, the birth place of Tennyson, or Raithby, or Bag Enderby, or Ruckland, Claxby, Skendleby, etc. A drive along the Blue Stone Heath Road will reward you with fine views. North of Mablethorpe there are miles of deserted sandy beaches and nearby North Somercotes has a decent pub. It will not have escaped your notice that the places mentioned all end in ‘by’. In all there are 161 of them in Lincolnshire - all originate from the Vikings. That fact alone should tempt you to visit.

The next fallacy is that the flat part is boring. No it isn’t! A considerable portion rests on land reclaimed from the sea. Before this a lot of it was boggy and not just the coastal regions either. There is a reason part of it is in a polity called ‘Holland’ and a reason why it has doubled for The Netherlands in films. As far back as the first Millennium our Viking friends were complaining about it being boggy and wet but we have moved on. A bit.

Today the concerns for wildlife and indeed quality of life have influenced the transformation of the marshes into a delightful and tranquil experience, bearing in mind that regions around The Wash are still highly susceptible to the tides. If you venture too far out the rising tide will outrun you. But first make sure you pick some samphire, which is abundant.

The Humble Sausage in the Land of Grey and Pink

Many years ago I volunteered to cook for a visiting youth orchestra and some bright spark decided to feed them Lincolnshire sausages, which are not pink when cooked or full of gristle. We might as well have offered them a plate of loft insulation. This orchestra hated our sausages. ‘Course’, they were from Landun. What did we expect?

A good sausage will be partially cured in its skin. It will appear pinkish/grey at first, going to grey as it cooks and the texture will be a combination of finely chopped meat, breadcrumbs, spices and herbs. A predominant herb is often sage. It is the relatively low level of fat, combined with its ability to self-cure that gives them a longish shelf life. (I once asked a butcher exactly how long you can keep them and he told me up to and including scraping the ‘fur’ off them. Bad ones, and I admit there are a few, go rancid before they cure which is a sure sign they have too much fat.

Nowadays they sell ‘Lincolnshire’ sausages in every supermarket and are no more Lincolnshire than Grape Nuts are made of grapes or nuts. A preponderance of sage in a supermarket sausage doth not a Lincolnshire make. It merely makes a sagey, gristly and fatty pink sausage and in my book is darn near to cultural appropriation, but not in a good way. (Technically, these are made in Lincolnshire to satisfy EU directives)

So where to get the real deal?

In the North of the county there is Barton-Upon-Humber and Brigg. Both towns are worth a visit in their own right. Further South is Boston, where apart from great sausages you can sit a marvel at the fattest people in England,

Take a selfie beside the ‘Do not defecate in public’ signs (in several languages in order to embrace diversity)

and come away with a big bag of top class sausages. That is as long as you have not been stabbed or poisoned. Lincoln has one or two good butchers’ shops up on the hill.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, but keep it a secret, is Freiston.

On the edges of the marshes - you can do your Magwitch impression here - is a fine purveyor of pork; last time I was there, along with a coolbox of sausages, I picked up some stuffed chine, which is a slow cooked ham heavily veined with parsley and only made these days by a handful of old-timers. There is an RSPB nature reserve on the edges of The Wash at Freiston Shore. It’s a few miles East of Boston which you could conceivably avoid altogether if you wish to avoid the perpetual sense of latent violence in town.

But you must do your own sausage hunt. A good start is the pubs and restaurants but be selective and check the reviews. Take in the tranquility in some of the little hamlets mentioned above and see that little cottage in the photo? - known as Woodman’s Cottage between Somersby and Harrington. Struggle frantically to get to safety on the marshes as the tide comes in. Drive off the road into a dyke at the end of numerous long roads that suddenly do a 90 degree turn after miles of ram rod straightness. If you are interested in choral music - William Byrd was the organist at Lincoln Cathedral and John Tavener held that role at Boston Stump (The Parish Church of St Botolph)

The Lincoln Sausage Festival is held in the grounds of Lincoln Castle every October. See you there!