But in the case of this evening's vote in the Commons on the Brexit trigger, it was all about the stuffing.

The sausage is as expected: a brief, to-the-point bill giving the government the power to trigger Brexit when it wants to: probably next month, possibly in Malta (where PM Theresa May is expected to make it part of her speech to gathered European leaders).

It passed overwhelmingly.

This was the bill's first test in the Commons – next week it goes to committees, then to another Commons vote (with potential amendments), then to the Lords.

Assuming it survives intact – a fairly (but not entirely) safe assumption - what follows will be a two-year (or longer) process debating exactly what Brexit will look like.

This is what the country voted for. For parliament to have done otherwise would have been political suicide for much of the Commons – some put it as high as a constitutional crisis.

Some are calling this an historical moment but really it's the inevitable consequence of last year's vote.

Though the Brexit referendum didn't, in any truly legal sense, have power or consequence, most politicians reckoned the result had to be respected or it was their neck, electorally.

So that's the sausage.

The stuffing, which is the fun part, has two main ingredients: yet another Labour meltdown, and a vigorous and occasionally angry debate over what kind of democracy the UK actually is.

Labour first.

The party imposed a "three-line whip" on the vote, instructing its MPs to pass the bill, on the principle that it was what the country voted for (and they'd needlessly antagonise their Brexit-leaning supporters in the north of England if they did otherwise).

Unfortunately leader Jeremy Corbyn has been notorious for ignoring the whip during his decades in parliament, and he's terribly unpopular with the country and considered unelectable by many of his colleagues.

He had promised to sack any of his shadow cabinet who voted against the bill, so several just resigned instead.

The rebellion, when it came, was significant. And it leaves Corbyn facing yet another reshuffle among the diminishing pool of MPs of substance he can still count on as supporters.

But that's democracy. Speaking of which:

"It's odd that 600+ people in Westminster think they are more important than the people who voted for them," said one UKIPper on Twitter.

But the vote had tricky problems for many MPs that went to the heart of what democracy actually means.

Take Oxford West, for example. A Conservative MP, Nicola Blackwood, holds a seat in a city that voted overwhelmingly for Remain. Should she have represented her constituents and voted against the Brexit bill?

Is this how representative democracy is supposed to work? Was she being principled? Did she betray the clear wishes of the people who voted for her, or did she choose a higher path that deserves respect?

Or take Rhondda Cynon Taf, a valley in the south of Wales which voted 54 per cent to leave the EU. But all the valley's MPs indicated they would vote against the Brexit trigger.

Rhondda's Labour MP Chris Bryant was one. He confessed to the Commons his vote could cost him his job, but he believed Brexit would leave Britain poorer and weaker and so "not in my name, never never never".

"I am a democrat but I believe in the form of democracy that never silences minorities and I think the 48 per cent in this country have a right to a voice and for that matter the 46 per cent or the 45 per cent or whatever the actual figure was in my constituency," he said.

"Today I'm afraid I am voting and speaking on behalf of a minority of my constituents."

In the end he lost. And many others who agreed with him about Brexit – or used to - won.

Some MPs voted with their conscience, some pragmatically, some according to their belief of what was expected of them by the country as a whole, some not.

It was a fascinating mess. Just like Brexit.