It seems these Australians forgot to consider their neighbouring country that is also girt by sea and also loves sausage sizzles. The Spinoff has uncovered strong evidence that the first charity sausage sizzle was held in Hamilton, New Zealand and that the dish itself was invented at a rugby tournament in Kaitaia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The term \u201csausage sizzle\u201d originally referred to events where sausages were cooked on sticks over an open fire<\/a>, but eventually came to apply to public barbecues held to raise money for community groups. The earliest Australian reference to a charity sausage sizzle was in 1946<\/a> in Forbes, New South Wales, when the Junior Country Women\u2019s Association hosted a \u201cFull Moon Sausage Sizzle\u201d to solicit donations of canned and dried goods to send to England as part of the post-war recovery effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n A \u201csausage sizzle competition\u201d held by an Oddfellows society from Adamstown, NSW was mentioned by a local paper in 1941, but the Sydney Living Museum\u2019s food blog, The Cook and the Curator<\/a>, found that this was probably some kind of cook-off rather than a public fundraiser and concluded that 1946 was the true date of birth.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1939, a whole six years before the \u201cfull moon sausage sizzle\u201d in Forbes, the second annual North Auckland Primary Schools\u2019 rugby tournament brought 200 young players to Kaitaia for three days. At the opening dinner at the Kaitaia A&P Hall<\/a>, the organisers planned to feed the crowd of children with American-style hot dogs in buns. However, due to a shortage of buns, they adapted the recipe to use slices of bread. This was more than a decade before sliced bread became commercially available in New Zealand.\u00a0<\/p>\n A reporter for the Northland Age heard about this meal (or possibly saw it with their own eyes) and thought it was notable enough to write an article about. The headline was: Hot Dogs: New Style<\/a>. The rugby tournament organisers didn\u2019t use the words \u201csausage sizzle\u201d, but there are several other instances of \u201csausage sizzles\u201d in New Zealand that predate the 1946 Australian origin claim. These include a \u201csausage sizzle\u201d for Christian students at Otago University in October 1945<\/a> and a \u201csausage sizzle\u201d in Hikurangi in December 1942<\/a>, provided for the children of Tikipunga Orphanage.\u00a0<\/p>\n The earliest use of the term \u201csausage sizzle\u201d in New Zealand comes from March 1942<\/a>, when 18-year-old Hamiltonian Beryl \u201cMonnie\u201d Menzies hosted a \u201cpopular girl sausage sizzle\u201d at a motor camp below the Waikato Brewery (now Ferrymead Park). She was competing in a contest to be crowned \u201cHamilton\u2019s most popular girl\u201d.<\/p>\n The two-month-long Popular Girl contest of 1942 took Hamilton by storm. The public cast more than 600,000 votes, paying three pence each time for the privilege. The Waikato Times published 90 articles about it during the competition window.\u00a0 Business lobbies openly endorsed their favourite candidates. One of the campaign teams was caught running an illegal gambling ring<\/a> to buy votes.<\/p>\n The popularity contest was elaborate framing for a competition between industry groups to see who could raise the most money for the National Patriotic Fund, which sent care packages to soldiers in WWII. Monnie Menzies was the representative for the public service.\u00a0<\/p>\n The \u201cpopular girls\u201d were supported by committees which helped them to organise a huge range of fundraisers including concerts<\/a>, masquerade balls<\/a>, a dog show<\/a>, a cattle sale<\/a> and a grand carnival at the mayor\u2019s residence<\/a>. One group of volunteers blocked off Victoria Bridge<\/a> and demanded a silver coin donation from anyone who wanted to cross. \u201cNearly every day persons walking in Victoria Street have to run a gauntlet of appeals,\u201d one reporter wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe earliest known photo of a \u201csausage sizzle\u201d on a barbecue. 1969, Taup\u014d Free Kindergarten Annual Fair. Source: Taup\u014d Times.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an excerpt:\u00a0\u201cThe art of impaling a sausage in a semi-pared bread roll is rightly a succulent and honoured old American custom. The 200 schoolboy footballers who descended upon Kaitaia last week evidently approved of the general principle but lacking just the right kind of bread roll to carry it into full effect they were forced to suit their sausages to the general proportions of slices of bread hewn in generous style from typical Kaitaia loaves. The result was a completely new style of hot dog rolled coyly in a slice of bread that seemed to give thorough satisfaction even if it did not look exactly elegant.\u201d<\/p>\nA hot dog with NEW STYLE.<\/p>\n
News clips from the Waikato Times during the 1942 popular girl contest. Image: PapersPast<\/p>\n