Or Dunderbeck’s Machine Revisited
Most people are familiar with a metaphorical expression along the lines of: “You don’t want to know how the sausage is made ” which refers to some process, the end products of which one happily consumes while ignoring the possibility that the ingredients or ways of manipulating them may be harmful.
Butchers have always made sausage from scraps that wouldn’t pass muster if put on the table undisguised, compensating for lack of freshness and other flaws with strong spices. The situation only became worse (if not “wurst”) in the late 19th century when sausage making became an industrial process carried on out of sight in large meat packing plants instead of the town butcher shop where customers could see the manufacture and had frequent interaction with the sausage maker. That transition is satirized in the 1896 vaudeville song “Dunderbeck’s Machine” which I learned as a child (1950’s) along with other bits of lore warning of dangers widely believed to be obsolete.
Oh, Mr. Dunderbeck, how could ye be so mean,
To ever have invented that sausage meat machine?
The pussy cats and long-tailed rats, no more they will be seen,
They’re all ground up for sausage meat in Dunderbeck’s machine.
In Dunderbeck’s Machine, the protagonist invents a machine which turns “pussy cats and long tailed rats” into sausage at a fast clip; he accidentally gets trapped in his own machine and is turned into sausage. There are many urban legends, a few possibly true, of villains disposing of murder victims in sausage machines, and persistent rumors of dogs, old horses, animals that have died of disease and other unwholesome ingredients going into sausage. The Mad Cow disease epidemic in England can be traced to the use of parts of diseased cows in sausage making.
There are laws against such practices, and basically, we in the US (or Canada, or Great Britain) trust that they will be enforced when we put corporate kielbasa on the table. We assume, for example, that slaughterhouses do not turn a blind eye when animals too neurologically impaired to walk are inserted into the food stream. We really have no idea of the extent to which sausage factories, literal and figurative, cover up practices that harm the public, because we have never personally been in a sausage factory, except perhaps on a guided tour which omitted the uglier practices. Moreover, the information sources on which we rely are also steered into carefully chosen paths. There are parts of sausage factories that only come to light through the revelations of disgruntled employees, or through persistent investigative reporting.
All of which brings us to my metaphor of the “Restricted Zone in the Sausage Factory.” That is the part of any operation, be it a slaughterhouse, a political party, a hospital, a corporation, an educational institution … (the list could be prolonged ad infinitum) which those running the operation are particularly anxious to shield from the public eye, lest it adversely affect what is euphemistically termed “consumer confidence” and with it the bottom line.
A scientist or investigative reporter with a commitment to the truth knows well when she has strayed into this restricted zone. The powers that be will wax hysterical over minor breaches of confidentiality or threaten charges of criminal trespass, and if that is not sufficient to silence the whistle blower, they will do their best to discredit him and render him impotent by ruining a career.
It is dangerous territory, and the end result is often being ground to sausage meat in Dunderbeck’s machine, to say nothing of toxic sausage.
Photo Credit
Photo from Mysterious Chicago
Sue Denker says
I remember being in a diner in Pennsylvania. Someone had told us about the scrapple and I asked the waitress about it, having never tasted it. She said “I wouldn’t eat that. I know what goes into it.”
Martha Sherwood says
Finely divided titanium dioxide is an additive that I try to avoid, which is ubiquitous in school lunches due to the practice of serving low-fat and nonfat milk almost exclusively. Just because it isn’t proven to increase cancer risk doesn’t make it safe. It is one of a number of common additives which seem to interfere with intestinal absorption, making the food we ingest less nutritious in practice if not according to assays of raw materials. https://chemicalwatch.com/52374/titanium-dioxide-in-food-linked-to-gut-health-effects
Ronald Prentice says
As an enthusiastic consumer of sausages of various types I can attest that I have, so far as I know, never had an unfortunate incident due to eating them. Perhaps in the metaphorical realm there may be many others like myself who have consumed much metaphysical sausage yet have felt no ill effects. I suspect that in spite of protections in place we are now having far more “sausage” thrust upon us not only by government agencies charged with protecting the public but that there is also a growing sector of the populace that is acquiring a taste for more of the same.
Martha Sherwood says
It is particularly troublesome when a potentially addictive ingredient is added to “sausage” to encourage repeat customers and over-consumption of something that is harmless or even beneficial in moderation but becomes damaging in excess. Our economic system encourages this. I bet a brand of hot dogs that contained THC would be a real money maker, especially if marketed as a medical treatment for people with appetite problems. Wonder if I could get the contract to supply Peacehealth.
Phoebe J. Gates says
This hits home with me. I can always tell when one of my preferred sausage factories is under a well deserved attack, or some part of me is afraid there is truth to it. I feel very squirmy and I really want to change the focus, if not the subject. Well done, Martha!
Martha Sherwood says
I’ve had a couple of people read this and comment that it doesn’t pertain to them because they are vegetarians. Being a vegetarian only protects you, personally, from the ill effects of consuming contaminated sausage. It does nothing to prevent the damage when, for example, the owner of the sausage factory uses his influence in Congress to use your tax money to buy his toxic product for distribution to schoolchildren and members of the armed forces. It has been said that more men died in the Spanish-American war (1898) from contaminated meat than from enemy bullets. I wonder if the same thing will be said by posterity of certain pharmaceuticals which are thrust upon servicepeople at present.
MJ Krajnak says
I worry about the future consequences of feeding “chicken burgers” and other mystery meats in school lunches to our children. Some of these items look like breaded foam rubber.