Anyone seen my Saveloy?

Nope, sorry, it’s gone, simply a widow’s memory now…

A piece of modern slang, I’m told m’lud. I don’t recall where I saw this mentioned recently, but it prompted me do a quick refresher on the humble saveloy; a main-stay of chip shops around the country and therefore mostly accompanied with chips — at least in most of England — although I found out that in the North East (canny lads these Tykes, eh?), they’re also sometimes eaten in what’s called a “Saveloy Dip” sandwich where the bun is dipped in the water in which the saveloy has been boiled, or even better, in gravy, which rather rocks my boat (see what I did there?) then enhanced with a layer of stuffing and pease pudding, finally seasoning with Coleman’s yellow mustard. Sounds like something to seek out next time we’re in that neck of the land.

Named, it’s claimed, from the Middle French cervelas or servelat which in turn originated from the Old Italian cervellato (‘pigs brains’) — as the saveloy was traditionally made from pork brains — ultimately going back to the Latin cerebrus (‘brain’) and first used like this, to mean this actual dish, in England as far back as 1784. Cervellato is still the name of a sausage in Italy; longer and thinner than the Italian standard, it does, colouring aside, resemble one of our own although, unfortunately, just as here, there’s now no longer pork brains used, as even part of the mix.

I remember the clear water boiler towers that a lot of shops would use to cook their sausages and whilst it always looked like an invitation to bring on the botulism, equally, it never seemed to happen, simply just another cheap & cheerful, working class dish, resembling as they do, the equally common German currywurst.

“Oi oi saveloy!⁣”. Just don’t be like the Mancunian woman who actually rang the Old Bill to complain that she’d got too many saveloys with her chips….