Things I Learned at the Sausage Symposium

Things I learned at the Sausage Symposium:

Veal brats, spiced with parsley and lemon peel, are associated with Munich, whereas the Sheboygan-style brat, more coarsely ground and differently spiced, originated in Northern and Eastern Germany. (Ms. Paradis)

Most (non-skinless) hot dogs today are encased in cellulose, made from wood pulp. (Dr. Rust aka The God of Sausage)

The most closely guarded secrets in sausage making are the spice mixtures. (Dr. Rust).

There are no schools devoted exclusively to sausage making in the U.S., but we do have a National Cured Meats Hall of Fame. (Randy Ream of Elburn Market)

Thanks to the Frankomatic and the Wiener Tunnel, mass-production of hotdogs has reached levels that permit artisanal sausage making to re-emerge in the U.S. (Bob Schwarz of Vienna)

The attitude of Flint, Michigan residents toward the Coney Dog can only be described as reverent. One Flint Coney restaurant features a glass wall etched with the images of God and Man from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling (Dr. Lockwood)

The important thing about a corn dog stick is that it shouldn't be pointed on the end. In fact, a wooden coffee stirrer makes a nice corn dog stick.(Gus of Wiener and Still Champion)

Vienna Beef dogs get their texture from bull meat. (Vienna's Bob Schwarz)

A hambuger is technically a sausage. (Andy Smith of Oxford Companion)

The popularity of the hamburger was initially bolstered by health claims made by doctors, including one Dr. Salisbury. (Andy Smith)

Tom Tom Tamales are made with the original 1937 equipment, and packaged by hand. (Dr. Engler)

"Mustard has no business on a tamale." (Dr. Engler)

And perhaps the most surprising thing I learned:

One should not disrespect liquid smoke products, as they are made with real smoke, in a process not unlike the one used to make vanilla. Additionally, they have the known carcinogens removed. The taste problem is with the commercially available products, which are poor versions of what can be a complex and flavorful product. These are custom-made for sausage companies. (The God of Sausage.)

Josephine wrote:Vienna Beef dogs get their texture from bull meat. (Vienna's Bob Schwarz)

And Vienna dogs are 75% bull meat, which I found to be a surprisingly high percentage. In addition to texture, there's also a lot of flavor in bull meat -- it can't really be eaten, though, unless it's ground fine.

We may actually need to start a separate thread just to hash over the info we acquired yesterday.

David Hammond wrote:We may actually need to start a separate thread just to hash over the info we acquired yesterday.

I agree, though people who heard Cathy on NPR may want to find that discussion and will need a clear path to do so.

Your choice of the expression "to hash over" makes me wonder if there is such a thing as a corned beef dog. I would definitely be into that.

Josephine wrote:Your choice of the expression "to hash over" makes me wonder if there is such a thing as a corned beef dog. I would definitely be into that.

There is Hot Doug's tueben, which is close.

Josephine wrote:A hambuger is technically a sausage. (Andy Smith of Oxford Companion)

I'm a little uncomfortable with putting hamburger in the sausage category. If that holds, then gyros, pate, meat loaf, stuffed squash blossoms and tacos al pastor are, technically, sausages too, right? Too odd.

stevez wrote:There is Hot Doug's tueben, which is close.

Though I thought I had sworn off hot dogs for a good 6 months after yesterdays blow-out (and yes, a small salad sufficed last evening) I find myself now planning an excursion to HD's for the tueben and some kraut this week!

Josephine wrote:One should not disrespect liquid smoke products, as they are made with real smoke, in a process not unlike the one used to make vanilla.

But liq*id sm*ke still tastes like crap, harsh acrid old cigarette ash like crap, and has no business in products meant for consumption by humans.

Of the many things I learned at the Symposium, the Polish at Jim's Original, which I don't particularly like and have said contains liq*id sm*ke, does use the nasty crap. While Maxwell St Express, which I have stated I prefer, uses a Vienna Polish which is smoked in a smokehouse.

Enjoy,
Gary

David Hammond wrote:

Josephine wrote:A hambuger is technically a sausage. (Andy Smith of Oxford Companion)

I'm a little uncomfortable with putting hamburger in the sausage category. If that holds, then gyros, pate, meat loaf, stuffed squash blossoms and tacos al pastor are, technically, sausages too, right? Too odd.

Well what makes bulk pork sausage different from hamburger? Spices, maybe filler. That puts meat loaf, pate and some gyros made with finely-cut meat awfully close cousins. Tacos al Pastor, shawerma, and some gyros are made with large cuts skewered and sliced en masse, which I would not call sausage-like.

I think, though, that the defining characteristic of sausage still has to be the casing, and bulk sausage is just sausage that merely hasn't been encased yet. That's a slippery slope, certainly, but it's a matter of intent and traditional recipe. Skip the casing and you've got quenelles in some cases, meatballs or /k[eio]fta/ (sorry for the regex) in others. I've seen kefta labeled as a sausage, and winced at that description.

Other possibly defining characteristics would be spices (nope, there are merely cured or smoked meat sausages), curing or smoking (nope, there are ones that aren't), torpedo shape (back to kefta, but lets out hamburgers and meat loaf).

Verdict on hamburgers? No casing, no curing or smoking, can be seasoned or mixed with other ingredients (would an egg be an exclusion factor?)... No sir, not a sausage, 'cause I don't say sausage when I point my finger at it.

The attitude of Flint, Michigan residents toward the Coney Dog can only be described as reverent.

As someone who married a former Flint-ite, I can attest to this statement.

And to continue the religious (or sacreligious) line of reasoning, I am something of a Coney convert.

JoelF wrote:

David Hammond wrote:

Josephine wrote:A hambuger is technically a sausage. (Andy Smith of Oxford Companion)

I'm a little uncomfortable with putting hamburger in the sausage category. If that holds, then gyros, pate, meat loaf, stuffed squash blossoms and tacos al pastor are, technically, sausages too, right? Too odd.

Well what makes bulk pork sausage different from hamburger? Spices, maybe filler. That puts meat loaf, pate and some gyros made with finely-cut meat awfully close cousins. Tacos al Pastor, shawerma, and some gyros are made with large cuts skewered and sliced en masse, which I would not call sausage-like.

I think, though, that the defining characteristic of sausage still has to be the casing, and bulk sausage is just sausage that merely hasn't been encased yet. That's a slippery slope, certainly, but it's a matter of intent and traditional recipe. Skip the casing and you've got quenelles in some cases, meatballs or /k[eio]fta/ (sorry for the regex) in others. I've seen kefta labeled as a sausage, and winced at that description.

Other possibly defining characteristics would be spices (nope, there are merely cured or smoked meat sausages), curing or smoking (nope, there are ones that aren't), torpedo shape (back to kefta, but lets out hamburgers and meat loaf).

Verdict on hamburgers? No casing, no curing or smoking, can be seasoned or mixed with other ingredients (would an egg be an exclusion factor?)... No sir, not a sausage, 'cause I don't say sausage when I point my finger at it.

The main differences between hamburger and most other sausage are fat content and technique. What gives most sausages their texture and sausage-like definition is fat, which is usually about 25-30% of the formulation, by weight. Additionally, there is something to be said of the process. Hamburger is not usually mixed until it binds, as many sausages are. Hamburger is not emulsified, as many sausages are. These processes play a big part in giving sausage its familiar characteristics. Dr. Rust mentioned that a well-mixed hamburger patty containing salt would not lose its moisture (being stored overnight) because of the way the salt binds to the protein during the mixing process. There a lot of other less significant factors but in my limited experience those 2 are key.

I'm ok with categorizing hamburger as sausage but it isn't an example of a very good sausage.

=R=

Gary, I'm only repeating what the God of Sausage said, but then, I am aware that, as the God of BBQ, you have considerable standing on the matter ':wink:' Really, though, I posted this because I thought you would be interested and I realized that you had already had to leave when the Professor got around to describing the process of producing liquid smoke. I also dislike Liquid Smoke, but I have limited experience with the universe of smoked sausage. For that reason, I cannot refute the contention that the proprietary liquid smoke products are superior, as Dr. Rust claims. If I had really been on the ball, I would have asked him to give an example of the artificially smoke-flavored products that support his thesis. Then, it would just be a matter of a taste-test. I guess I should head down to Jim's and Maxwell and do a side-by-side tasting of your candidates. But would you be upset if I waited a week or two? I already have Hot Doug's teuben on my dance card.

G Wiv wrote:But liq*id sm*ke still tastes like crap, harsh acrid old cigarette ash like crap, and has no business in products meant for consumption by humans.

Must admit, GWiv has a point about the "cigarette ash" notes in a liquid smoke-treated product.

Hi,

I have Dr. Rust's contact information, it is just a matter of asking him.

Regards,

ronnie_suburban wrote:The main differences between hamburger and most other sausage are fat content and technique. What gives most sausages their texture and sausage-like definition is fat, which is usually about 25-30% of the formulation, by weight. Additionally, there is something to be said of the process. Hamburger is not usually mixed until it binds, as many sausages are. Hamburger is not emulsified, as many sausages are. These processes play a big part in giving sausage its familiar characteristics. Dr. Rust mentioned that a well-mixed hamburger patty containing salt would not lose its moisture (being stored overnight) because of the way the salt binds to the protein during the mixing process. There a lot of other less significant factors but in my limited experience those 2 are key.

I'm ok with categorizing hamburger as sausage but it isn't an example of a very good sausage.

=R=

Thanks for your reflections on this, r_s, and for the correction on the Professor's name. It was really interesting for me, as a layperson who never took high school chemistry, to listen to his description of the food science of sausage. I find myself wondering if those pre-formed burgers have salt mixed in to improve ease of handling in food service contexts.

Cathy, I think it would be fun to ask Dr. Rust for his candidates for a taste test. I might just do that. (I'm not going to fully concede bias in the matter quite yet; I need to retain a measure of objectivity to get the full enjoyment from the process.)

Josephine wrote: Really, though, I posted this because I thought you would be interested and I realized that you had already had to leave when the Professor got around to describing the process of producing liquid smoke.

Josephine,

Thanks, very considerate of you, but liq*ud sm*ke is a subject I have given some exploration. I would not simply discount, be so inflexibly negative, out of hand.

Not to say there may not be delightfully tasty LS process out there I am not aware of, but with me it comes down to taste, not what makes the production line run smoother.

Enjoy,
Gary

Gary-- Agreed. It comes down to taste. Earlier, I didn't mention that I think "cigarette-ash" is a very accurate descriptor of all the Liquid Smoke I have tried. There's almost a petroleum finish to it.

Would you be interested in tasting some of Rust's suggestions of sausages with high-quality smoke taste? We could even do a blind tasting. I would bet that you and some of the other LTH-er's who are especially BBQ-savvy could make quick work of that. I can see it all now: LTH's Sausage Smackdown 2007!

G Wiv wrote:Not to say there may not be delightfully tasty LS process out there I am not aware of

There is an illustrated article about how to make your very own liquid smoke using a Weber kettle and a still-like setup in the latest issue of Cooks Illustrated. My question is why you would want to do this? If you are already setting up the Weber, why not just grill the food in question with a couple of chunks of hardwood and forget about adding liquid smoke to it?

This was also illustrated on Good Eats in the Urban Preservation II: The Jerky, though the recipe isn't available online (from what I remember, it involves dry ice and a lot of aluminum foil, and some kind of box-like contraption similar to Ronnie_Suburban's cold-smoke setup.)

It strikes me as being a lot of work for not much payoff...

Some of my favorite tidbits from the day:

Three-fourths of the sauerkraut eaten in the U.S. is consumed in the Midwest. (Paradis)

In the 1950s, Sheboygan, WI, was the largest per capita user of charcoal in the U.S. -- almost all for brats. (Rust)

A dish exists that consists of slab bacon stuffed with sausage meat! (Ream)

One of the worst thing to happen to the sausage industry was artificial insemination -- bulls are now much harder to come by, especially larger bulls. (Rust)

One of the reason Vienna sausage ended up in most of the city's hot dog stands is that Vienna, started by immigrants, believed in helping immigrants, and gave considerable aid and often money and products to those newcomers who wished to start a hot dog stand. (Schwartz)

The Chicago-style hot dog arose during the depression. (Schwartz)

Almost all Coney Island owners in Flint, MI are Macedonian and from the same village in Macedonia. (Lockwood)


And wading in on the hamburger issue -- Andy Smith did mention that it arose from the "Hamburg sausage" that became popular in England in the 1800s and ground beef was first served in German restaurants in 1872. So there appears to be a strong connection between hamburger and sausage. (Plus Robert Rust said that the definition of sausage is meat reduced to fine particles -- that it includes other things, at least salt, is a general assumption, but absolutely necessary for the definition.)

Because I love dictionaries, I looked up sausage and found that the word comes, by way of Old French and Middle English, from the Latin salsus, which means salted and is also the root of sauce.

As an aside, I think it is interesting to note that what the British call pudding was originally considered a sausage, as well. In fact, in Webster's, the first definition of pudding is "blood sausage."

So it appears the definition of sausage is still evolving.

Cynthia wrote:A dish exists that consists of slab bacon stuffed with sausage meat! (Ream)

We had this dish at the LTH Picnic...Dragon Turds (or Wolf Turds)

Cynthia wrote:...And wading in on the hamburger issue -- Andy Smith did mention that it arose from the "Hamburg sausage" that became popular in England in the 1800s and ground beef was first served in German restaurants in 1872. So there appears to be a strong connection between hamburger and sausage. (Plus Robert Rust said that the definition of sausage is meat reduced to fine particles -- that it includes other things, at least salt, is a general assumption, but absolutely necessary for the definition.)

I'd always heard the term "Hamburg steak" as the origin, being a sort of steak tartar. Wikipedia has no such reference, instead mentioning "Hamburg Sandwich" from a Hamburg NY festival, as well as several other competing origins.

I don't know if this came up at the symposium, but Chicago industrialist Erwin Freund, who imported the wonderful white deer who now overrun Argonne National Lab (his old estate), had the first patent on a skinless sausage casing and helped spur the Chicago hot dog boom with his inexpensive, edible casing. I had to find the original patent and the map of his estate boundaries when I worked at Argonne on an environmental assessment project.

stevez wrote:

Cynthia wrote:A dish exists that consists of slab bacon stuffed with sausage meat! (Ream)

We had this dish at the LTH Picnic...Dragon Turds (or Wolf Turds)

Steve,

I wish you could have seen this. It was a whole, entire pork belly that had been rolled into a massive horn and stuffed with a sausage mixture. From all appearances, it was cured and smoked too but I'm not sure if that was done before or after it was stuffed. It ended up being larger in diameter than a typical mortadella. A short video showed it being sliced into. It was like slicing a thin disk from a tree trunk. And obviously, the entire exterior of the slice was comprised of the bacon-y belly. What a decadant concept that looked amazing. I have to say that it alone may justify a trip to Ream's Elburn Market, where it was made (and possibly conceived).

=R=

Ream's Elburn Market
128 North Main Street
Elburn, IL 60119
630 365-6461

ronnie_suburban wrote:Steve,

I wish you could have seen this. It was a whole, entire pork belly that had been rolled into a massive horn and stuffed with a sausage mixture. From all appearances, it was cured and smoked too but I'm not sure if that was done before or after it was stuffed. It ended up being larger in diameter than a typical mortadella. A short video showed it being sliced into. It was like slicing a thin disk from a tree trunk. And obviously, the entire exterior of the slice was comprised of the bacon-y belly. What a decadant concept that looked amazing. I have to say that it alone may justify a trip to Ream's Elburn Market, where it was made (and possibly conceived).

=R=

Ream's Elburn Market
128 North Main Street
Elburn, IL 60119
630 365-6461

Wow. that's quite a dish. I might just have to ride along with you.

stevez wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Steve,

I wish you could have seen this. It was a whole, entire pork belly that had been rolled into a massive horn and stuffed with a sausage mixture. From all appearances, it was cured and smoked too but I'm not sure if that was done before or after it was stuffed. It ended up being larger in diameter than a typical mortadella. A short video showed it being sliced into. It was like slicing a thin disk from a tree trunk. And obviously, the entire exterior of the slice was comprised of the bacon-y belly. What a decadant concept that looked amazing. I have to say that it alone may justify a trip to Ream's Elburn Market, where it was made (and possibly conceived).

=R=

Ream's Elburn Market
128 North Main Street
Elburn, IL 60119
630 365-6461

Wow. that's quite a dish. I might just have to ride along with you.

Well, if my driving doesn't give you a heart attack, this is bound to.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Well, if my driving doesn't give you a heart attack, this is bound to.

=R=

I imagine this dish is braised or slow oven roasted?

Cynthia wrote:Almost all Coney Island owners in Flint, MI are Macedonian and from the same village in Macedonia. (Lockwood)

I also thought it amusing that the name of that village is "Buf," pronounced "Bouffe"!

ronnie_suburban wrote:I wish you could have seen this. It was a whole, entire pork belly that had been rolled into a massive horn and stuffed with a sausage mixture. From all appearances, it was cured and smoked too but I'm not sure if that was done before or after it was stuffed. It ended up being larger in diameter than a typical mortadella. A short video showed it being sliced into. It was like slicing a thin disk from a tree trunk. And obviously, the entire exterior of the slice was comprised of the bacon-y belly. What a decadant concept that looked amazing. I have to say that it alone may justify a trip to Ream's Elburn Market, where it was made (and possibly conceived).

Ronnie,

The sausgemakers at Andy's Deli make several similar creations.

Hi,

I am heading to Galena for a wedding this weekend. I think you have identified a must-stop on the way out of town. Elburn is also supposed to have an apple cider press. I will check that out too and advise.

Regards,

Evil Ronnie wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:I wish you could have seen this. It was a whole, entire pork belly that had been rolled into a massive horn and stuffed with a sausage mixture. From all appearances, it was cured and smoked too but I'm not sure if that was done before or after it was stuffed. It ended up being larger in diameter than a typical mortadella. A short video showed it being sliced into. It was like slicing a thin disk from a tree trunk. And obviously, the entire exterior of the slice was comprised of the bacon-y belly. What a decadant concept that looked amazing. I have to say that it alone may justify a trip to Ream's Elburn Market, where it was made (and possibly conceived).

Ronnie,

The sausgemakers at Andy's Deli make several similar creations.

Thanks, chef, for the info.

Do you know if this particular meat configuration has a specific name?

=R=