Over 8 years and hundreds of various sausage tastings and sightings its difficult to assign high quality marks to mass market commercial sausage. The operative phrase here is mass market.
Having visted most of the 50 states and Canadian provinces there's not a lot to recommend a mass market sausage over any small producer who has half a wit of ambition and caring.
Finding a truly outstanding artist of sausage takes some doing and usually it happens by Word of Mouth. Its hard for me to write this because as soon as you mention a small high end artist, they get discovered and the weight of money and celebrity sits on them like stink on a sumo. Where once was a good butcher you get the Jabba The Hut purveyor.
With prayer and hopes for a better outcome, Sausagefest.com has to point to Ream's Elburn Market in rural Elburn, Ill as one of those Artisanal sources of fine sausages. For several years, the Sausagefest judges have give "exceptional art" marks to their:
The Cudghi is an example of a small regional variation of Italian sauasge taken to a different taste realm. You know its Italian Sausage but you know its not the same thing as you expect. You expect lean and full taste from Ream's and their Cudghi sausage is "exceptional art".
(As always, our sampling was done on our dime. We pay for what we eat and review.)
Ream's Elburn Market
128 North Main Street, Elburn, Illinois 60119 (630) 365-6461
