[BITList] Fwd: Try Irn Bru, leave the square sausage, advises Japanese guide to Scotland | UK news | The Guardian

[HUGH]

Mike,

Sounds as if it will be a good read.

The "square sausage" issue is far more complex than the book says.  When God 
made it I have every confidence that henceforth it was evermore to be called 
Lorne Sausage, but rarely in my life have I heard it called that, or square 
sausage.  On the lower Clyde it is called "slice", but not so up the river, 
as I found out one day, and I may well have related this anecdote before. 
One morning around 7.15, on my arrival at Kvaerner, Govan, I called at the 
canteen for something to compensate for having missed breakfast. Thinking I 
was still in Scotland I asked for "a roll on slice".  "Whit's slice?" the 
lady asked.  "That's slice," said I, pointing at it.  "That's no slice, 
that's sausage," she said.  "No," said I, pointing to sausages, "These are 
sausages. "They're no sausages, they're links," she said.  "Have you any 
ham?" I asked, changing tack.  "No ham, only bacon," she said.  I can't 
recall what I got.

The thing about slice is that one can only enjoy the kind made on the 
premises by ones own butcher. That's a tradition. The stuff sold in 
supermarkets is inedible, being composed of cardboard and sawdust, and the 
stuff the neighbours buy from a butcher in Greenock is only marginally 
better.

Hugh.