i’m just a sausage… i can’t help the way i look pic.twitter.com/AhJsYgzjYM
— Denny's (@DennysDiner) September 13, 2017
We’re following the controversy surrounding Denny’s sausage mascot! Despite some negative publicity, Denny’s stands by their mascot. Check out these articles:
Follow this link to read an Atlas Obscura article about “The Mysterious Origins of a Food That’s Always Been Funny: The Sausage.“
Perhaps some wine with your sausage? Or sausage with your wine?
Below is a map of both Sausage Pioneers and Approved Sausage Makers.
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Pat: For me it started at the Chicago Cooking and Hospitality Institute. John Fuente was one of my instructors and whole idea of quality ingredients and eating well started there. Then I was lucky enough to intern at Blackbird and started making sausages there.
Then two friends and I went to California and by our second restaurant gig, I was becoming the sausage guy, and that’s when I started realizing this is what I need to do.
Growing up in Belgium (her parents are US citizens living abroad) sausages and healthy eating were just what we did every day. Coming back to the U.S. I didn’t know that what I knew about eating and healthy foods was so radical. But why not make really good sausage with really good ingredients?
In the two years since we started we’ve seen a good deal of growth. We’ve been very pleased to see that Southwestern Michigan and Northern Indiana growers and farmers being on board with what we’re doing.
— Pat Mullins, LOCAL
We started March 17, 2011. St. Patrick’s day is our lucky day. We started here because it was affordable and we were close to farmers who had the natural products we were looking for.
Pat: For me, it was culinary school but for Ellie she grew up with that in Europe.
Ellie: The part of our mutual belief was in both of us being political science majors. Eating food and buying food is also about choosing a better way to live – it’s a political decision as well. But, more than the politics and it just making common sense to eat better, we think it tastes better!
We find that most of the things we sell that are non-protein are within 25-30 miles of us. For meat and cheeses we expand the circle to 100 – 200 miles. About 90% of what we sell is going to be Midwest, but we do have some cheeses from beyond that range. We think we have a good supply of farmers locally who get that we don’t want hormones and chemicals in our meat.
In the two years since we started we’ve seen a good deal of growth. We’ve been very pleased to see that Southwestern Michigan and Northern Indiana growers and farmers being on board with what we’re doing. And, just as important, we’ve had very good acceptance from our customer base, which we now figure extends into the Chicago market.
How many sausages do you make?
We have about 15 recipes that we use. Our butcher case usually has four to eight different sausages to choose from. Since we’re still a small shop, we also pay attention to the calendar. When the warm summer weather gets here, we shift to doing a lot brats because it what people want to grill on the weekend. So, we’ll have four or five sausage selections during the major summer months. We do a wider range of sausages prior to Memorial Day or after Labor Day. Its also at those times when we try out new sausage recipes; when its summer time we’re running over time of keeping the basic sausages in the butcher case.
Not right now. I think this is future for us. It makes sense but we’re very busy with our store traffic.
Ellie: Well, it’s like saying which child is your favorite. But, right now, I really like our Merguez sausage. I think we have the spiciness just right.
Pat: I’m in a Bacon Brat phase right now.
Two of our favorite sources are Swan Creek Farms here in Michigan and Gunthorp Farms in Indiana. Swan Creek gives us very nice Berkshire hogs for our pancetta. And, Gunthorp sends us Duroc hogs and we make bacon from those hogs. Both farms are very conscientious about the high quality of meat and the sustainable healthy philosophy.
We’re seasonal sausage makers. During the cool months we’ll do more of Toulouse type sausages, then when it warms up, we’re back to more of a Brat style. In terms of new sausage ideas, we’re usually trying out new things after Labor Day. We get a chance to breathe and try our some new things.
You have to try the Ramp-Andouille sausage. Ramp has this wonderful green onion and garlic taste so we thought this would compliment our Andouille sausage. It’s a short season on local Ramp so it’s a special spring sausage. A limited edition type of sausage we have in April, early May. We’re also hoping to start serving a warm sandwich or brat during the weekends this year. We’ve had a lot of people who just want to drop in for a quick sandwich or brat and try our stuff before they buy a quantity. Maybe by the time you come back in warm weather, we’ll have that in place.
Pat: It literally walked in the door. One of my Dad’s friends loves food and cooking and he said he ran across this recipe. Well, he came back after making it and we tasted it and the light bulb went on. The second thing that happened was that we made a big batch for my Dad’s wedding a couple years ago and everyone at the wedding loved it. The word of mouth thing happened and suddenly we were wall-to-wall with bacon jam crazed customers. It’s a labor-intensive thing to make. It takes a lot of time to make and get right, so we only sell it on Sunday mornings and we sell one jar per person. We make 25 jars – so when it’s gone its gone. It’s funny to see so many people up on a Sunday morning at the store.
We feel very blessed to have found Terra Spice (www.terraspicecompany.com) in Walkerton, Indiana. Phil Abbott runs it and one day he was making his rounds and came into our store. It was like finding a kindred spirit. He was into high quality spices done right. Plus he wanted to do it in a rural setting. We’re very happy with his spices and with Phil being another friend in the high quality sustainable food environment.
Last year we did over 3500 pounds; this year we might be doing 5100 – but that’s a very big step for a store who still uses a hand crank sausage maker!
Right now we’re still doing incremental growth. We’d like to get more partnerships with pizza places and restaurants where we could be their designated sausage maker and they could point that out to their customers. We might be doing some more ready to eat things at the store – so we’re looking into that as well.
It is all consuming. We live here, sleep here, and focus on the business 24 hours a day. It is our child and it needs constant attention.
For many people, cooking sausages connects them with primal parts of their being. Some want their sausages well done because cavemen invented fire 5000 years ago and that’s why you cook the sausages so well. While there are those who seek perfection on earth and imagine their grilled sausage is part of that quest. Maybe it’s a spectrum thing, a range of tastes that in many cases have no overlapping common elements – like a red state Trumpite talking to a Seattle blue stater about politics. There may be agreement on oxygen being necessary to breathe but after that the particular variables are marbles rolling around crashing into each other.
But, even in quandaries of conflicting deeply held values there can be some knowledge gained for both parties and all the community members. In the following article from Serious Eats, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt does a wonderful job bringing some demonstrable evidence and data about what can happen when you cook sausages. As I read the article I could hear my inner caveman sneer at some of his suggestions. But, he offers options and good ideas and that’s a constructive piece of writing that any red state or blue state person could agree on.
J. Kenji López-Alt is the managing culinary director for Serious Eats:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/05/the-food-lab-the-best-way-to-grill-sausages.html
It’s fine if MSNBC and FOX have a war of words over whose leading us to Armageddon. Given recent history there’s ample proof neither political party could even lead us to Armageddon successfully – so color us doubtful.
But, the never ending heat wave across the whole country, too much television (who wants go outside?), and political hyperbole around the deficit is a toxic cocktail that’s been slipped into our drinking supply.
The last two weeks in talks with the leadership from both sides of the aisle has worn me out from the sausage making process. It was ugly, perverse and disgusting.
–Kent Antonius, Editor & Publisher
I think these noxious cocktails are especially affecting the media folks you want to give us the inside scoop on Washington deal making. Or, maybe its just sloppy rhetorical skills, which seems more likely.
I won’t go through the laundry list of media people and elected officials who have uttered these mean spirited and demeaning remarks, but the utterance goes like this:
“The last two weeks in talks with the leadership from both sides of the aisle has worn me out from the sausage making process. It was ugly, perverse and disgusting.”
This analogy of politics to sausage making gets attributed to Otto Von Bismarck. There’s not a lot of evidence that he actually said it, but it gives a speaker citing this a thin veneer of authority to dismiss politics and sausage making at the same time.
While the politics and the avarice of Bismarck’s day are no better than in 2011, sausage making has actually made significant progress. If you talk to any sausage maker you would know this. I’m in the process of writing a book about sausage makers in America. I hear this in my conversations with sausage makers. Quality ingredients, hard work and attention to detail are damn important. If you don’t get the weight, meat portions, temperature, pH, curing agents and seasonings right you have an un-edible meat experiment.
Unlike our political leaders professional sausage makers have to pass health inspections by state, local or federal inspectors. How many politicians could pass a health inspection?
Ingredients in the sausage have to be plainly labeled and poor ingredients won’t make for a good product or happy customer. When’s the last time a politician labeled their personal ingredients? (I will admit that thanks to the Federal government, we did get to see the ingredients that made up Rod Blagojevich.)
You can find sausage makers in your hometown who have shops on Main Street. They’re accountable to their customers everyday. Amazingly, you can sample stuff before you buy it and only buy as much as you want. And, these folks are often there six days a week or seven and you never see them on television. You might even want to invite them to your cookout. Do you really want an elected official anywhere near where you’re eating?
The facts are in and sausages and sausage making is not comparable to the US political process. Its fine with me if a commentator looks down their nose at politicians or their process, but denigrating sausage making has to stop.
Let’s declare the Saturday of Labor Day weekend Sausage Day in America – forever more. This year September 1st is the second annual Sausage Day in America and the Labor Day holiday wraps around it perfectly like a bun around a hot dog.
To honor this blue collar event there are two requirements:
• No one talks politics this day – why ruin a holiday?
• Go to your local sausage shop and buy some great sausage – and enjoy a sausage without the political BS.
