A thin sausage wrapped in a slice of white bread with cooked onions on top shouldn’t work as well as it does. But walking past any school fair, open-air market or Bunnings on the weekend, if the bangers are frying, there will be a line.
Sausage sizzles are a cherished part of Australian culture. Anni Turnbull, a Powerhouse collection curator specialising in the Australian culinary archive says democracy sausages – sold outside polling booths on election day – in particular are an edible manifestation of the idea of “a fair go”.
The only snag? Sausage sizzles may not be an Australian creation. First reported in The Spinoff, the New Zealand publication argued the nation had not only held the world’s first sausage sizzle but also invented the humble snack.
This isn’t the first time the two countries have clashed over claims of gastronomic appropriation. See: lamingtons, pavlovas and flat whites. The origins of the sausage sizzle may have legitimate roots in Aotearoa’s soil, based on archival New Zealand and Australian newspapers.
The earliest documented use of the term “sausage sizzle” to refer to a charitable event in Australia was in 1946, where members of the Forbes Junior Country Women’s Association organised a “Full Moon Sausage Sizzle” to bring non-perishable supplies in exchange for a sausage. These were to be sent to England to help postwar recovery efforts.
This was four years after New Zealand’s first use of the phrase. In 1942 Beryl Menzies threw a “Popular Girl sausage sizzle”, in an attempt to become “Hamilton’s most Popular Girl”. Popular Girl contests were community-run events used to raise funds for wartime charities.
Barbara Santich, author of Bold Palates: Australia’s Gastronomic Heritage, says New Zealand’s claim as the sausage sizzle’s place of origin isn’t entirely unfounded. But she points out that: “Australia was doing the same thing under the American borrowing of ‘barbecue’.”
Jacqui Newling, culinary historian and curator at the Museums of History NSW, adds: “Often it’s not who did it first, it’s who wrote it down first.”
A sausage sizzle not in name but in spirit, was first reported in 1939 in Australia. Referred to as a “sausage buffet”, it was part of a Guy Fawkes celebration in Adelaide, raising funds for the Winston Dugan camp. Although the event’s news clipping describes “sausages sizzling”, a buffet is not the same as a sizzle. “It’s got to have the terminology,” says Newling.
Says Turnbull: “When I think of a sausage buffet, I just see a table filled with sausages and jelly.”
At the very least, Australians can wholeheartedly stake a claim to democracy sausages. In New Zealand, the election day sandwiches are not as commonplace, and are usually offered for free by community groups – though the government has vowed to enforce a ban on free food within 100 metres of a polling booth.
Newling enjoys the way these conversations show the commonalities between the “two across the ditch”. Only in Australia and New Zealand would people expect a sausage in a slice of bread as opposed to a roll. There is also a distinct antipodean role sausage sizzles play in building community. “You don’t kind of go out and have a sausage sizzle on your own,” says Newling.
While this certainly won’t be the last time Australia and New Zealand squabble over a basic dish, Newling says that these debates keep shared food heritage alive. “I think it’s a really lovely thing.”
