In celebration of one of our most traditional and best loved foods, next week is entirely dedicated to the honour of the great British banger - British Sausage Appreciation Week. And what better time to pay homage to the brilliant banger than on Hallowe'en tomorrow or Bonfire Night next weekend.

Many sausages are named after where they were originally made, such as Cumberland and Lincolnshire. Today there are more than 400 varieties of sausage.

Sausages are an excellent source of high quality protein, containing all the essential amino acids necessary for growth, maintenance and repair of body tissue. Sausages also provide significant amounts of vitamins and minerals.

There is even a restaurant dedicated to sausages - RK Stanley's, in London's Little Portland Street - which opened in 1997 and serves over 3,000 sausages per week to sausage fans from all over the world.

The world record for the longest currently stands at over 20 miles and is held by a team in Canada - a world record attempt will be staged in November to bring the record back to the UK.

The word sausage derives from the Latin salsisium, meaning something that has been salted

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first specific reference in English came in a fifteenth century vocabulary 'Salcicia' a 'sawsage'.

Sausages were nicknamed bangers during Second World War because when they were fried they tended to explode with a bang!

Sausages through the ages

Sausages are even older than Ancient Greece or Rome - the Sumerians (modern day Iraq) made sausages 5,000 years ago.

Sausages are mentioned in Homer's Odyssey as far back as 9th century BC.

Aristophanes uses sausages in one of his plays, which was written in 423 BC and 'The Oyra - The Sausage' was written by Epicharmus in about 500 BC.

The nation's favourite butcher, Coronation Street's Fred Elliott is a member of the British Sausage Appreciation Society and often wears the Society's Mr Sausage tie and pin down the Rovers.

Titanic star Kate Winslet showed her love for sausages and changed the menu for many a wedding reception when she chose bangers and mash for her wedding breakfast.

Many famous people actually started their careers working in the industry - ex-England footballer Chris Waddle was a former sausage maker and comedian, Vic Reeves was a pig farmer.

See today's Weekend Magazine for some tempting sausage recipes.

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