I will be starting on my SRP as soon as I get back to Sydney. I will also get my webcam at www.sydneyview.com running again.
Yes, having just spent almost six months in the British summer, I will be heading back to Sydney soon. The summer in England was a disappointment with very few sunny days and an awful lot of cloudy, dull days. I remember wearing shorts and a T shirt for a week or two back in April soon after I had arrived in the UK. Since then I have only dug out my shorts on one occasion. Trips to the coast or cricket matches have mainly been on cold and windy days. I feel more than ready for a bit of Sydney sunshine.
Maybe I should say what SRP stands for. Well it is Sausage Research Project although Salt Reduction Project would also be appropriate.
I love a lot of things about Australia but it seems impossible to get a decent British style banger. All the sausages I have tried on my previous visits have not been good. It hardly matters what type of sausage you buy because when you come to eat it, all you can taste is salt. I also noticed that when buying Stilton cheese from a Mosman deli that again the cheese was very salty and this masked the expected creamy Stilton flavour. I can only assume that all this salt is to improve preservation in warm temperatures. Yet there are plenty of refrigerators here and beer is always served cold, so it is hard to see the problem. Maybe the Australian health authorities are out of touch with the sort of salt reduction programmes taking place in Europe. It is known that high salt consumption can contribute to problems of heart disease and stroke.
Anyway in my SRP I plan to visit lots of butchers and deli’s around Sydney and the inner suburbs. I intend to tell the proprietor that I am looking for an English style pork sausage that is not too salty and that I can actually taste. I will then purchase their recommended sausage. Once I have cooked it and tasted it, I will keep a note of my results. I will tell the shopkeeper that I intend to publish my results.
If anyone is interested in where to get a low salt, tasty sausage in Sydney then let me know and I will publish my findings in this blog. In fact if you can suggest a suitable purveyor then please let me know.
While I am at it, it would be also good to know where you can get a decent pork pie. The ones from David Jones seem salty and on one occasion, I walked the entire length of Mosman High Street and going into all the shops selling food asked for a pork pie. Most of the shopkeepers looked at me as if I was mad and nobody had any.
If I can find a satisfactory Sydney sausage then my Sydney sojourn will be perfect. (Hard to say that).
Peewit
