Wait, you call it a what?
“Put on the footy franks and crack open the Tia Maria!”
We have to imagine that some of you reading know exactly what a footy frank is, for others, you may know them as saveloys. Some of you might recognise it as a frankfurt and anyone in the Sunshine State might be thinking of a cheerio.
No matter what you call it, it appears that every pocket of this fair country has its own name for the bouncy, boiled sausage in a firetruck red cloak.
In NSW many folks refer to the sausage, though we wish they wouldn’t, as a ‘little boy’ in a co*ckney rhyme for saveloy. In QLD and across the ditch, cheerios tend to be the go, despite that particular sausage originating in Melbourne. The name “cheerio” is rumoured to be a nod to James Carruthers Hutton, founder of meat processing brand, J. C. Huttons because he always said “cheerio” rather than “good-bye.”
Related story:Barbecued frankfurts with coleslaw
Saveloy is believed to be derived from Middle French cervelas or servelat, originating from Old Italian cervella (‘pigs brains’), ultimately from the Latin cerebrus (‘brain’). Its first known use in the English language in this meaning was 1784. Cervellato is still the name of a sausage in Italy though it is longer and thinner than standard Italian sausages.
Possibly the closest to what Australians would recognise would be the bright red Frankfurt Würstchen, a smooth, mortadella like blend of pork and beef slurry which is smoked and reheated in simmering water to avoid the case splitting.
Hey, there’s a reason why we don’t ask how the sausage gets made.
Related story:Have you even been to a kids party if it didn’t have these nostalgic treats?
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