Poem Spot: Sausages

Regular readers will know, from past writings, of my fondness for the humble sausage sandwich. To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling’s dictun that a “A woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a smoke”, let me say that “Food is only food but a sausage sanger is a feast.” 

The folded slice of bread with a barbequed sausage, fried onions and tomato sauce, to me, is far preferable to lobster and Scotch fillet. 

Last weekend Kate and I spent the Father’s Day weekend with Kate’s dad, Noel, so Kate, the boys and WAGs had lunch at our house yesterday for our Father’s Day get together. Amongst the gifts, from Thomas and Jess, was an extract from a poem by A P Herbert and a promise that if I selected 3 types of sausages, they would make them and have us over when they put them on the bbq. 

Thanks, guys, both for the gift and the poem . . . 

Sausage and Mash 

A.P. Herbert (1890-1971) 

If there's a dish

For which I wish

More frequent than the rest,

If there's a food

On which I brood

When starving or depressed,

If there's a thing that life can give

Which makes it worth our while to live,

If there's an end

On which I'd spend

My last remaining cash,

It's sausage, friend,

It's sausage, friend,

It's sausage, friend, and mash.

Sausage and mash,

Sausage and mash,

Hope of the hungry and joy of the just!

Sausage and mash,

(Not haddock or hash),

Done fill they bubble and done till they bust!

Your truffles are toys,

Your oysters are trash

Contrasted, my boys,

With the homelier joys

The beauty, the poise,

Of sausage and mash.

O noble thing,

From churl to king,

Uniting class and clan!

What brow so high

We cannot spy

The simple sausage-fan?

The haughty plumber blows a kiss

When Mrs. Plumber brings him this;

And where's the Lord

So old and bored

But that proud eye will flash

If some sweet girl

Says, "Sausage, Earl?

A sausage, Earl, and mash?"

Sausage and mash,

Sausage and mash,

With an R in the month I am happy and gay!

Sausage and mash,

My molars I gnash

With impotent longing in August and May!

I weary of fish,

I deprecate hash,

Your partridges—pish!

Quite frankly I wish

For the tiniest dish

Of sausage and mash.

Sweet when we rise

With heavy eyes

And work is just ahead;

Sweet any time,

But most sublime

When we should be in bed;

Though kingdoms rise and kingdoms set

A sausage is a sausage yet;

When Love is dead,

Ambition fled,

And Pleasure, lad, and Pass.,

You'll still enjoy

A sausage, boy,

A sausage, boy, and mash.

Sausage and mash,

Sausage and mash,

Done till they bubble and done till they bust!

Sausage and mash,

Careless and rash,

I raises my hat to the food of the just!

What's women to me,

What's liquor or cash?

Contented are we,

The sons of the free,

With a pot of hot tea

And sausage and mash! 

BTW: