Penrose Hot Sausages

Some of you may remember the large jars of Penrose sausages that sat on the counters in little neighborhood stores and bars years ago. The sausages were pickled, perhaps symbolic of what happened to some of the bar customers, too. Depending upon the time frame, the sausages were a nickel or a dime, and some neighborhood bars sold the little sausages on a slice of bread. It was not uncommon for the bars to pickle eggs in the spicy brine after the sausages were all sold. In with the sausages were always a few small fiery red chili peppers. Like my grandfather, I liked spicy food, and the other kids would love to see me eat one of the hot chilies with the sausage. The bar owner would use a long spoon or tongs to get one of the sausages and then to land one of the peppers to go along with it. The people in the bar, all of whom knew my grandfather, would often watch too, as I chomped on the pepper all by itself. No bite of bread or drink of water for me.

From what I understand, they stopped selling the sausages in jars a number of years ago. If I remember right, they had smaller jars for sale in grocery stores, but now they sell them in plastic packets, but I'll bet they don't have any little chili peppers in them. Time changes us and the things from our lives, but we still have the memories, including of those wonderful Penrose pickled sausages with chili peppers.

WORD HISTORY:
Tongs-This word goes back to Indo European "denk," which meant, "to bite, to sting." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "tango," with the notion of, "to grip by biting down." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) the noun "tange," meaning, "pincers," which later also came to be used by some to mean "pliers." Relatives in the other Germanic languages, all meaning "pincers, tongs, pliers:" German has "Zange" (the "Z" is pronounced "ts"), meaning, ""pliers, pincers, tongs;" Dutch and Low German Saxon have "tang" (pincers, tongs, pliers); Danish has "tænger;" Norwegian "tenger;" Icelandic "töng;" Swedish "tång."