Last updated 12:35, Monday, 05 May 2008

Accept no pitifully pale imitations. In the world of serious sausages only Cumberland will do... even Europe’s barmy bureaucrats must see that.

Champion: Cumbrian farmer Peter Gott takes his authentic Cumberland sausage to London as part of the campaign

Cumberland is the macho, body-built, uncompromising Mr Universe of sausages. Numero uno, top of the league, champion.

As meaty as Schwarzenegger, handsome as Pitt, artful as Clooney – it sees off all challengers to send copycats cowering into the shadowed corners of defeat. And it tastes good too.

Great news then that an official application for Cumberland sausage to be granted protected status is to be thrust at the European Union. Producers of Cumbria’s finest want officials in Brussels to give it a VIP ranking alongside Champagne, Parma ham and Greek Feta cheese.

Formal protection would prevent sausage-makers outside the region using the title “traditional Cumberland sausage” – a frequently-used label any recent arrival to the county from elsewhere will know is a blatantly scurrilous untruth.

Not until you’ve tasted the genuine article in its home environs can you fully appreciate how pathetically limp-wristed are its mimickers. Conversely, when you’ve strayed – however foolishly – from these parts, purchased in good faith the skinny links pretending to be the real McCoy, then made the mistake of trying to cook them, all becomes instantly and tastelessly clear – they can sure take the Cumberland out of sausage but no way can they take the sausage out of Cumberland.

According to the Cumberland Sausage Association, our true home-made should be 80 per cent meat, coiled not linked, have a wider diameter than conventional (and inferior) products and a rough-cut texture.

A bit rough, a bit thick and with a big, beautiful body in other words... who could say fairer than that?

Hats off to all protectors of Cumbria’s most delicious of delicacies. More strength to their elbows, lead in their pencils and power to their cause. They fight the good fight for an inarguable truth that there may be other things more important than sausage... but not many.