Look close enough and you’ll see Australia’s identity reflected on the grill of a sausage sizzle.

It can represent a fair go, an immigrant’s baptism and a politician’s worst nightmare. There’s controversary over how to serve it, how to eat it and it even inspired the 2016 Word of the Year.

But the sausage sizzle wasn’t always the much-loved ritual it is today. Before its association with democracy, fundraising and hardware store visits, the sausage had humble beginnings.

First broadcast on ABC RN’s The History Listen before the 2019 Federal Election.