The invention of the sausage sizzle was a happy accident. And it was our accident.

From across the Bunnings’ carpark, the wafting smell of charred onions greets the hungry shopper like a hug. At hardware stores and sports grounds across New Zealand and Australia, you’ll find community groups raising money by selling a sausage in a slice of white bread with onions, mustard and tomato sauce. The sausage sizzle is a beloved institution, but like many of the two countries’ proudest creations, it’s a case of disputed origin.

That’s right, we’re doing the pavlova thing but with snags. 

In her book Bold Palates: Australia’s Gastronomic Heritage, food historian Barbara Santic wrote that “the sausage sizzle is a uniquely Australian variant of the barbecue”. In the ABC podcast The unauthorised history of the sausage sizzle, journalist Mike Williams declared that “of all the food culture in the world, Australia owns the sausage sizzle”. 

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. 

The term “sausage sizzle” originally referred to events where sausages were cooked on sticks over an open fire, 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 in Forbes, New South Wales, when the Junior Country Women’s Association hosted a “Full Moon Sausage Sizzle” to solicit donations of canned and dried goods to send to England as part of the post-war recovery effort. 

A “sausage sizzle competition” held by an Oddfellows society from Adamstown, NSW was mentioned by a local paper in 1941, but the Sydney Living Museum’s food blog, The Cook and the Curator, 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.  

In 1939, a whole six years before the “full moon sausage sizzle” in Forbes, the second annual North Auckland Primary Schools’ rugby tournament brought 200 young players to Kaitaia for three days. At the opening dinner at the Kaitaia A&P Hall, 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. 

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.

Here’s an excerpt: “The 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.”

The rugby tournament organisers didn’t use the words “sausage sizzle”, but there are several other instances of “sausage sizzles” in New Zealand that predate the 1946 Australian origin claim. These include a “sausage sizzle” for Christian students at Otago University in October 1945 and a “sausage sizzle” in Hikurangi in December 1942, provided for the children of Tikipunga Orphanage. 

The earliest use of the term “sausage sizzle” in New Zealand comes from March 1942, when 18-year-old Hamiltonian Beryl “Monnie” Menzies hosted a “popular girl sausage sizzle” at a motor camp below the Waikato Brewery (now Ferrymead Park). She was competing in a contest to be crowned “Hamilton’s most popular girl”.

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.  Business lobbies openly endorsed their favourite candidates. One of the campaign teams was caught running an illegal gambling ring to buy votes.

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. 

The “popular girls” were supported by committees which helped them to organise a huge range of fundraisers including concerts, masquerade balls, a dog show, a cattle sale and a grand carnival at the mayor’s residence. One group of volunteers blocked off Victoria Bridge and demanded a silver coin donation from anyone who wanted to cross. “Nearly every day persons walking in Victoria Street have to run a gauntlet of appeals,” one reporter wrote.

The contest was one of the most successful community-level wartime fundraising drives in New Zealand history, bringing in a net £19,025; more than $2m in today’s money. The young women who competed were mostly in their late teens and early 20s. Their country was at war. They couldn’t fight and they had limited earning potential. The popular girl contest gave them an opportunity to use their skills and attributes to make life a little better for soldiers fighting on the front lines.

Menzies didn’t win the contest, but she made a real contribution to her country and left her mark on history as the first person to host a sausage sizzle for a charitable cause.

From the Kaitaia rugby tournament to Monnie Menzies’ fundraiser to the full moon party in Forbes, the sausage sizzle has always been about community. That’s why it has cemented such a special place in New Zealand and Australian hearts. When you buy a snag from the friendly locals on the barbecue outside Bunnings, you’re getting more than a snack. You’re giving back to something greater than yourself.