Jurassic Bratwurst

Along with my geology professor brother-in-law, and three or four other rock-formation-ignoramusses, I went white-water rafting the other day on the Kicking Horse River. Lots of fun, even (especially?) when B-I-L toppled overboard and the rest of us just sort of sat there staring at him struggling in the rapids until a total stranger got up from the back of the raft to haul him in. ("Guess you'll think about buying better Christmas presents this year," was all I could think of to explain my behavior.) And then, perhaps inspired by his brush with chilly water, he began to wax poetic about how we were really rafting at the bottom--the very, very bottom--of the primordial North American Sea, and that all the mountains towering above us had a kabillion years ago been covered with miles of water. It kind of made the highway improvements nearby seem a bit dinky. I had until then spent the entire day obsessed with the idea that I looked like a bratwurst in my wetsuit, but there's something about putting the dimension of one's hips within the context of 340 million years of history that makes sausages of any sort appear slightly inconsequential. If you can imagine that.



I wonder who was the first person to make a sausage. Likely a German of some description. Ah, here's some important information:

The history of sausage production parallels the recorded history of man and civilization. In fact, for as long as man has been carnivorous, the intestinal tract of meat animals has been used for sausage casings - not to mention a variety of other uses as well. Courtesy "A Brief History of Natural Casings," at www.insca.org.

And in case you're wondering, "insca" stands for International Natural Sausage Casing Association, something that makes my current preoccupation with sterling silver tinkly chandeliers seem brainy and rococco by comparison, and probably makes whatever you were just thinking about ten minutes ago worthy of writing down.