Well, I’m obviously not going to give it all away here on the blog - I’m still writing up the complete guide to making sausages for my next book. But, what I can show you is how to tie up a classic butchers string of sausages.

I spent an hour or so with Vince from Humphreys in nearby Clare. He’s an excellent butcher and patient tutor – I’m a lousy pupil. The trick is to make a loop, and tie that onto the string – sort of like pulling a U-shape from the whole length and then knotting that onto the string. Whereas, what I kept on doing, was making a loop which somehow left me having to thread a six foot length of sausage through that loop. Disastrous.

If you’re making sausages at home you can always do it like the southern Europeans do and loop a length of string around the sausage at appropriate lengths. Or, simply do what the Cumberlanders do – ignore the situation completely.

Obviously my apologies for the quality of the sound recording – I took this quick video so I could re-play it again and again whilst writing up the technique. I thought it was so fascinating, mesmerising even, that I should put it up on here.

You’ll have realised, of course, that I am the one holding the camera whilst Vince ties the sausages.

Vince demonstrating how to tie a string of British bangers from Tim Halket on Vimeo.