A traditional British sausage, made from a blend of Herdwick mutton and oysters was eaten with great relish this lunchtime at Andrew Sharp's Lindal-in-Furness premises. Once a popular food, the oyster sausage vanished into oblivion a decade or so before the First World War. Its ancestry goes back to at least the early seventeenth century, recipes being quite common in cookery books from that period. This noble delicacy was always made with a combinaion of mutton and oysters, two ubiquitious and cheap English foods, once available to all. This suprisingly good combination was also used for other dishes, like spit-roasted mutton stuffed with oysters.

Most modern chefs and diners are very sceptical when I tell them how good oyster sausages taste - that is, until they try them themselves. So far, everyone who has sampled this curious dish has given them a very definite thumbs-up. This does n't suprise me at all, as they have an excellent flavour - a combination of upland fell-bred Herdwick with more than a hint of the sea. If you like, the original surf and turf.

Some time ago, Andrew asked me to suggest some old mutton recipes suitable for a Mutton Renaissance breakfast in London on the 17th June. Oyster sausages has been a favourite of mine for at least thirty years, so it was the first recipe I suggested. Andrew sourced some superb English Native oysters - the celebrated Pyefleet oysters of Mersea Island, almost certainly the reason why the oyster-loving Romans set up their capital at nearby Colchester. We blended the oysters with some hand-minced Herdwick shoulder, a few anchovies and some seasoning and filled our skins. The result  - one of the tastiest and most unusual sausages you could ever experience.