Rambling 2. Save Our Sausage

Ramblings: about North-West England

Ramblings is a set of articles about North-West England, of unknown authorship and indeterminate date, believed to have been written for amusement on rainy days, which are not unknown in North-West England.

2. Save Our Sausage

From an Office in Brussels

      M. Grévitrêne (EC Bureaucratiat):   Please come in, Mr Davis, and take a seat. How may I help you?
      Mr. Davis (MEP for NW England):   Well, I sent you a note about Cumberland sausages ...
      M. Grévitrêne:   Ah, yes. I have it here somewhere. One moment ... right, now, I see, you want to protect the Cumberland sausage. Protect it from what exactly?
      Mr. Davis:   From impersonation. From rogue sausage-makers making sausages and passing them off as Cumberland sausages and so besmirching the excellent reputation of the bona-fide Cumberland sausage.
      M. Grévitrêne:   I see. Tell me, what is special about the Cumberland sausage?
      Mr. Davis:   Well, for a start, it must be made in Cumberland!
      M. Grévitrêne:   Ah. Perhaps you could help me there. I studied the map of England last night and couldn’t find Cumberland anywhere. Could you show me on this map where Cumberland is.
      Mr. Davis:   I’m sorry but Cumberland isn’t on the map. It was abolished in 1974.
      M. Grévitrêne:   I see. Is there anything else special about the Cumberland sausage? Its contents perhaps?

      Mr. Davis:   Perhaps.
      M. Grévitrêne:   Perhaps?
      Mr. Davis:   Well, I don’t know what is in a Cumberland sausage because its makers keep the contents a trade secret. They tell me that it doesn’t have preservatives, it doesn’t have seasonings and it doesn’t have colouring but they won’t tell me what it does have.
      M. Grévitrêne:   I see. Anything else? What does it look like? How long is it?
      Mr. Davis:   It doesn’t have a length. It is round. Or rather a spiral.
      M. Grévitrêne:   Excuse me a moment. (Walks to the shelf; takes down a large volume; spends twenty minutes reading to himself, murmuring gently “braunschweiger ... falukorv ... mortadella ... blagenwurst ... kielbasa ... boerewors ...”; returns to the desk.)  Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Davis, but according to EU Directive S316.2 a sausage is cylindrical.
      Mr. Davis:   Oh.
      M. Grévitrêne:   So, let me summarise. You want the European Commission to protect a so-called sausage of illegal shape and of unknown content, to be made only in a nonexistent place.
      Mr. Davis:   Yes. That about sums it up.
      M. Grévitrêne:   Très bon. This is exactly what the Bureaucratiat likes to get its teeth into. This will keep us busy for a few years. Leave it with me. And if you’ve brought any Cumberland sausages, please leave them with me too.

Photos:
      European Parliament, Brussels.
      Harrod's "authentic Cumberland sausage".

Comments:
    •   As a connoisseur of Cumberland sausages I followed this case closely - but I am unsure of the current legal position. The Bureaucratiat decreed that Cumberland sausages may only be made in Cumbria (not unreasonably concluding that they could hardly decree that it be made in a non-existent place, such as Cumberland). Unfortunately, Cumbria also includes parts of old Westmorland and Lancashire. Cumbrian butchers in old Cumberland appealed to the European Supreme Court to prohibit butchers in the non-Cumberland parts of Cumbria from making Cumberland sausages. Did the court ever come to a decision?
    •   What about Kendal mint cake? Can that be made outside Kendal?
    •   What about Chorley cake? And Eccles cake?

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