A Lorne to the Past? The twisted history of the Square Sausage

Just like Boxing is the noble art played out in the squared circle, Scotland’s diet relies on the noble art of the Squared Sausage. However, many people call this culinary delight a Lorne sausage, so why is it named after the vaguley defined hinterland of Oban, home to Bob “Robert” MacIntyre and a flock of Calmac ferries?

One theory is that at one point the Campbells tried to make a burger to rival the Macdonald’s famous one but they refused to eat anything that was round. Secondly, calling it a burger was considered out of the question and the Duke said Inveraray was the only place in Argyll a Burgher should dwell.

The other Caimbeulach theory goes that the Duke of Argyll promoted contraception after Culloden to reduce the surplus population – cheaper than using vellum, sausage casing was a handy substitute but this left the butchers of Lorn to resort to the square patties that now bear its name.

Another more modern theory is that due to multiple issues with the Linkspan for the Mull ferry, the people of Lorne realised that the word Link was traumatic for the few Muileachs who make it ashore every year so they created a special sausage for them that was square in solidarity.

Yet it may be even more ancient at that and the Lorne Sausage is square because it harks back to a less phallic centric matriachal time in Celtic history when the mother goddess and the wise women tended the kye and the square sausage was prepared as an offering and sacrament to heal indigestion. Some neo-pagans still celebrate the creation of the Lorne Sausage under healing crystals on Samhain but many now use vegan Lorne which is made from chickpea and quinoa.

Or has the far east had an impact?

Originally video game mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto envisaged the Legend of Zelda as based around TWO Hylian children – Link AND Lorne – but after the success of Mario Bros he was convinced by Nintendo USA the brother gimmick had already been done.

However, the link or should we say Lorne wasn’t entirely lost as Shigeru placed a driver in sci-fi driving classic F-Zero 64 called Sukusoseji as an easter egg which is close in pronunciation to the Japanese for Square Sausage. スクエアソーセージ “Sukueasōsēji”. Also the decrease of hearts in Zelda to show health, was used to show the impact of Lorne sausage on the heart of a player in real life.

Finally, whilst this tale has no connections to the myriad of origin stories for the Oban meat treatm apparently the Glen Sannox was delayed initially after kitchen tests showed that the grills could not make a perfect Calmac breakfast roll purely based on its performance with Lorne Sausage.

Whatever the story, Greta Thunberg was overheard saying after tasting one in Glasgow, “This is ethical for the climate because there’s very little meat in these beermats.” So enjoy your Lorne folks, you’re saving the planet.