A thin sausage wrapped in a slice of white bread with cooked onions on top shouldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Sausage sizzles are a cherished part of Australian culture. Anni Turnbull, a Powerhouse collection curator specialising in the Australian culinary archive says democracy sausages \u2013 sold outside polling booths on election day \u2013 in particular are an edible manifestation of the idea of \u201ca fair go\u201d.<\/p>\n
The only snag? Sausage sizzles may not be an Australian creation. First reported in The Spinoff<\/a>, the New Zealand publication argued the nation had not only held the world\u2019s first sausage sizzle but also invented the humble snack<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018Often it\u2019s not who did it first, it\u2019s who wrote it down first,\u2019 says Jacqui Newling, from the Museums of History NSW. Photograph: James Gourley\/AAP<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time the two countries have clashed over claims of gastronomic appropriation. See: lamingtons<\/a>, pavlovas<\/a> and flat whites<\/a>. The origins of the sausage sizzle may have legitimate roots in Aotearoa\u2019s soil, based on archival New Zealand and Australian newspapers.<\/p>\n The earliest documented use of the term \u201csausage sizzle\u201d to refer to a charitable event in Australia was in 1946<\/a>, where members of the Forbes Junior Country Women\u2019s Association organised a \u201cFull Moon Sausage Sizzle\u201d to bring non-perishable supplies in exchange for a sausage. These were to be sent to England to help postwar recovery efforts.<\/p>\n This was four years after New Zealand\u2019s first use of the phrase. In 1942<\/a> Beryl Menzies threw a \u201cPopular Girl sausage sizzle\u201d, in an attempt to become \u201cHamilton\u2019s most Popular Girl\u201d. Popular Girl contests were community-run events used to raise funds for wartime charities.<\/p>\n Barbara Santich, author of Bold Palates: Australia\u2019s Gastronomic Heritage, says New Zealand\u2019s claim as the sausage sizzle\u2019s place of origin isn\u2019t entirely unfounded. But she points out that: \u201cAustralia was doing the same thing under the American borrowing of \u2018barbecue\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Jacqui Newling, culinary historian and curator at the Museums of History NSW, adds: \u201cOften it\u2019s not who did it first, it\u2019s who wrote it down first.\u201d<\/p>\n