Whassup wit da sossidge outside a da Windy City?

(Pardon the "da bearss" speak in the topic title)
I was just reading JiLS's account of sausage pizza in Trenton, and coupled with the stats I've seen elsewhere about sausage being popular mainly in the midwest (pepperoni is favored on both coasts), I just had to vent a bit of sausage pride:

We've got it great, here folks. And everywhere else seems to be second-rate when it comes to traditional sausage such as Italian, breakfast, etc. etc.

I've had breakfast sausage from SF to NYC that is basically grisly, flavorless blobs of fat (don't get me started on English bangers!).

Much as Tony Soprano grills these drool-worthy coils of sausage on his Weber, I've never been as happy with the quality or quantity of Italian sausage on pizza outside of Chicago either. (Even Uno's franchises don't give you a slab -- don't get me started on that chain either).

Sausage makers abound throughout Chicago and the burbs. It's great stuff! Perhaps it's Chicago's reputation as "Hog Butcher to the World" but even Nathan's, the world's best-known hot-dog stand in NY uses Chicago-made wieners. It may extend to other parts of the midwest (New Glarus landjager is unmatched although breakfast sausage in Ft Wayne made me gag).

What gave us this bounty of flavorful processed meat products?

Did you not read my piece that called Jim's report back to the fore?

It is without doubt no difficult task to find first rate sausage in New York and New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania; some of the absolute best I've ever had, possibly better than any I've gotten here -- and I've been to almost all the Italian sausage makers around here --I used to buy on a regular basis in South Philly.

The real point is that we (of the East Coast), have no particular tradition of putting sausage on pizza. I've grown accustomed to having sausage on pizza here but when I was growing up in northeast Jersey and Manhattan, we just about never ate pizza with sausage on it. And I repeat, sausage is not used to top pizzas in Naples either.

Let's can the misguided boosterism. Chicago has lots of great sausage and it is a local quirk that has the pizzerias generally putting reasonably good stuff on pizzas and in some cases really great stuff: thank God for that. In places where they don't have a tradition of putting sausage on pizzas, the pizzerias don't care so much. That doesn't mean the sausage in New York or Philly or Bergen County is bad.

Antonius

I'm an outsider who was really struck by how great sausage is here, and how folks don't really make a big deal about it. I'd go out on a limb and argue that Chicago is the great sausage town in the US, by far. But its shameful to be the best in this category (see Superfans), or it was.

The other board had a little back-and-forth about the need for a serious charcuterie culture, as is supposedly awakening in LA and NYC at places like Babbo and AOC. Both of those places are my kinds of places, but the marketing angle -- young superchefs discover artisnal meat packing and bring it to the enlightened foodies -- is idiotic.

Forget the Italian beef, you could look for a very long time in many great food cities before you found something as good as your every-day, on every corner Scala hot Italian. But the distinction does not stop at Italian sausage or its now recognized use as a superior pizza topper.

Consider the many Polish places that grind and smoke their own. The steamed slab bacon at Andy's deli on Division is perfect pork belly. (Not sausage, but in the genre.) Unbelieveable stuff. Consider Paulina Market. The Balkan places. Even Bobak's. (The fellow on CH who travels the world sampling and marketing pork products (Irwin is it?), between tales of 48 hour meals with bear claws in China claims that Bobak sells the best bacon in the world.) Consider Bende foods, of Vernon Hills, and its Hungarian sausages (not to mention pickled stuff). Consider the unique South Side BBQ hot link -- unknown outside Chicago and way underappreciated here, at least by those who write about food. The Texas hot link is a commercial, Hickory Farms-type affair at best. I eat them, sure, but they don't hold a candle to the robust, coarse sage-tinted Chicago links. Consider the moronga, the Isaan, the cevapcici, the morcillas, the kiczka, the vienna beef. The Kronos guy came up with the modern gyrokone after taking a sausage-making class at a city college. That's a Chicago rags-to-riches story.

I'm not ashamed to say it, Chicago might not be a great bread town, but it is the great sausage town.

Jeff:

I happily agree that this is a great town for sausage but there is no one in the world who can convince me that it is in some fundamental and obvious way markedly greater than the Middle Atlantic region or, as I prefer, New Netherland. There are countless excellent producers out there, as there are here, but the greater population of New York and its surroundings, as well as its ethnic intensity, assures it of having a veritable rainbow of serious sausage. Who's best? Who cares; just pass the mustard. Or the peppers and onions...

The more I think about it, the more I suspect that Chicago is the place where sausage as a pizza topping -- if not first brought together here -- is the place where the combination first found a meaningful and binding relationship. That's a good thing and probably THE greatest contribution to pizzadom that this town has had; 86 the stuffed pies and the pastry crust, keep the sausage topping.

But again, the fact that in New Netherland you won't find them putting great sausage on pizza does not mean they don't know how to make sausage; they just have different purposes for it.

By the way, there are some famous and unquestionably masterful Polish and Russian sausage makers in New York City. The situation for things German I don't know these days but when I was a kid, there was no dearth of superior Wurste. (On the 2 or 3 days a week we didn't eat Italian, we ate German, thanks to Mutter-- I pretty much maintain the pattern.)

A

Have you guys noticed that you're basically agreeing? JoelF says he didn't have good sausage on pizza in New England, Antonius says of course they have great sausage-- just not on pizza... Frankly I would not be surprised if you're both right in another sense too-- that the pinnacle of Italian sausage-making might well be elsewhere, but that Chicago, with all its Eastern Europeans, is still the best and most diverse sausage city overall.

However, I found something far more serious to dispute-- any idea that hot links are not to be found outside of Chicago. I certainly had them in both Wichita and Kansas City long before moving here, so while they may or may not have originated here, they're not unknown elsewhere.

MikeG:

Yea verily... I won't bad-mouth Chicago sausage for an instant... I like the stuff too much in all its multifarious, multinational glory... But I object to any 'dissing' of products of my home country... (I guess using 'diss' I sound now like an old guy saying 'cool' twenty or twenty-five years ago... Or is that already thirty years ago? Yikes.)

I can't do it now (too tired and stuffed with sausage) but will post soon on some damn good Wurste I've had of late in the city that stuffs (intestines)...

A

I wasn't completely serious about Chicago being the sausage king, nor was I completely serious about the bread being uniformly bad. But it is true that you can stumble on to a great wurst here without hardly trying, whereas you have to look around a little more in other big cities. It has to do with the populations, especially Eastern Europeans, and where they live. It's like Chinese or Thai in Chicago: the best of the best is only a handful of places and a population of ten thousand might support such as spot as well as a population of one million (the population in Chicagoland of "Polish-Americans" which includes far more than the couple hundred thousand Polish speakers, as I understand it).

I used to have fantastic sausage pizza back in Boston. (Sorry to shoot down the "East Coast" theory, but sausage pizza is popular, and good, there.) I've never had a pizza in Chicago as good as the sausage, ricotta, and roasted red pepper pizza from Santoro's in Davis Square, Somerville, and if anyone here ever gets one there and doesn't like it, I'll reimburse you. I have no idea where they got their sausage (there is a butcher shop three doors down, but I can't say for sure that was the source), but it had a little heat, the fennel was neither an undertone nor too assertive, and the pepper and other herbs and spices filled out the flavor just right. It isn't my favorite crust, but it isn't the Chicago cracker crust that annoys me so much either...

Anyway, the Boston-to-Providence corridor has a very substantial Italian population, and while we all have to adjust for the environment we grew up in, I think the sausages there are at least the equal of those I've had here.

Representin' for the hometown ,

Bob

I remember graduating from college in '83 and then moving to NoCal and then FLorida and then SoCal, and in the grocery stores...NO frozen sausage pizza. I'm thinking something was wrong but then I came to the realization that sausage as a primary topping for pizza was nearly exclusive to Chicago and the surrounding areas. EVERYWHERE I traveled it was pepperoni...and then when I got to SoCal, what with Wolgang Puck et al you got some really strange toppings. And in many places when you ordered a sausage pizza, you got, um, pardon the description here...flavorless rat turd pellets...or sausage sliced like pepperoni so thin that it had no dscernible taste.

On the other hand, I did make a discovery that has a unique Chicago connection. What is undoubtedly the best italian sausage I have EVER had can be found right here in SoCal, about 20 minutes from my house. Sabatino's is a descendent of the well-known and written about Sabatino's restaurant in CHicago, and the sausage is handmade, very thick in circumference, and made with goat cheese. THe flavor is unreal, and I often go out of my way to stop and get some of the relatively pricey ($5.00+/lb) goodness. Apparently they have opened a 2nd location in Dallas, TX as well. VERY highly recommended. http://www.sabatinosausage.com/index.htm

That being said, I am looking forward to being back at Christmas to sample a LOT of italian sausage, both on pizza and on a combo or 2!

Bob, that's great stuff. Sabatino Ognibene, Sicilian sausagemaker. It's all good. The idea that the history of Sabatino's here would come by way of a web site from the OC. The sausage-making tradition might explain why the cold cuts at Sabatinos here are so shockingly good (for this kind of place). But the sausage raises an issue for me. It sounds great, but I can't say I've had sausage at Sabatino's in Chicago or heard of a Sabatino's brand. I shall inquire next time I'm there. Also interesting to know it's a Sicilian family. The dishes don't give away a particularly Sicilian vibe. I've wondered whrther the chef isn't Bolognese, judging from the strong points of his menu. [PS, my question isn't whether the Sausage is Sicilian, it's whether the old Sabatinos sell it at their more Northern-ish Irving Park hangout. I sincerely hope they do.]

Is OC Sabatino's sausage Sicilian, Italian, Italian American, Chicago-Italian, or Southern Californian? Just so we can keep score

Putting cheese inside sausage (traditionally, it's been provalone) is to my mind a Sicilian thing. There are a couple of old sausage makers in Manhattan that are famous for that kind of sausage but I've never had it... What can I say, i so' cchiu napuletano... Come to think of it, I'm surprised I haven't seen it around here, where the Sicilian element in the old Italian population was very large, relatively much larger than in Jersey or New York.

By the way, I was talking with one of the Masi brothers the other day and he had the same take on cheese inside sausage... They're also Napolitani, well, from Campania anyway...

A

Not 100% sure but I think the Sabatino's in Chicago is not owned and run y the same family any more...that family now has the Newport Beach CA restaurant and has apparently opened the new one in Dallas TX. I discovered them when I first moved to Orange COunty in 1990 and the local paper had the "Top 10 foods" the reviewer had eaten that year and it was listed. I've been hooked ever since.

Bottom line is I do not know if the Sabatino's in CA and TX are related to the original Chicago loacation, so I do not know if the sausage is available there. I DO know that whatever style sausage it is, it is wonderful!

Pardon me for my ignorance, but where can one go to buy good sausage (for home cooking) in Chicago?

Janet C. wrote:Pardon me for my ignorance, but where can one go to buy good sausage (for home cooking) in Chicago?

It depends on what kind of sausages you're after, obviously, but in the present context Italian sausage is what I guess you have in mind, so I'll start there.

Very high quality Italian sausage is sold by:

Conte di Savoia, Taylor St. near Bishop (just east of Ashland)
They sell mild and hot, made by someone else, I believe, but delivered fresh there all the time.

Bari Foods, Grand near Racine
Bari makes their own; hot and mild (with fennel) and also Barese style (thin, no fennal, lots of garlic and parsley)

Riviera, Harlem Ave just north of Belmont
Riviera makes their own and has some four or five sorts on hand, including the usual suspects. A little ways south of Riviera on Harlem is Caputo's grocery store which I assume also has good sausage, though I haven't bought any there.

Of late, I've been buying sausage at my neighbourhood bakery, Masi's (Taylor and Western), who get theirs from one of the restaurants on Taylor street, It's really good but availalbility is unpredictable.

For Polish sausages, there are many, many places. Bobak's on Blue Island on the southwest side is a well known and respected large-scale producer; Korowski's is a good place on Mikwaukee that I wrote a report on for this board, but for all I know, it might be great or just basically good. Someone who knows the Polish sausage scene really well should write in.

For German sausages, an excellent (perhaps the best) place for selection and generally very high quality is Meyer's Delicatessen in Lincoln Square.

There are some other places that need to be added here but that's a start.


Antonius

I think I like Freddy's in Cicero better than Bari (which I also like) for Italian sausage. I don't get to Freddy's too often, because it's quite a hike, but it's definitely worth a visit as far as sausage goes (and a number of other things).

There was also an excellent cream sausage to be had (so it has been reported) at Jim's right across from Freddy's. Jim's closed at some point last year, but I believe has since reopened, though I can't recall where. Perhaps one of the Fishers can?

Aaron Deacon wrote:There was also an excellent cream sausage to be had (so it has been reported) at Jim's right across from Freddy's. Jim's closed at some point last year, but I believe has since reopened, though I can't recall where. Perhaps one of the Fishers can?

No credit to me, but I did see the info go by on CH that the former butcher had opened his own place. Here's the link.
http://chowhound.com/midwest/boards/chi ... 53611.html

and here's the address
Morini's Meat Market & Deli
1101 E. 31st St.
LaGrange Park
708-354-0430

Thanks, Ann, I knew you'd come through!

Aaron Deacon wrote:There was also an excellent cream sausage to be had (so it has been reported) at Jim's right across from Freddy's. Jim's closed at some point last year, but I believe has since reopened, though I can't recall where. Perhaps one of the Fishers can?

Could someone say a little bit about what "cream sausage" is?

I googled "cream sausage" and didn't get an answer to that question but found that whatever it is, it's available from Crawford Sausage in Chicago:

Crawford Sausage Company
2310 S. Pulaski Road
Chicago, IL 60623
1-866-65 DAISY
"Every Day Fresh as a Daisy"
www.crawfordsausage.com

Anyone familiar with this place?

David Hammond and Rene G have both expressed great enthusiasm for Jim's cream sausage on Chowhound. Apparently, it's made with milk, and it also has hints of sweet spice. I never made it to Jim's before it closed, and since I haven't made it to the latest incarnation yet either, apparently I didn't learn my lesson. It sure sounds good, though.

Cheers,

Aaron

Amata wrote:Crawford Sausage Company
2310 S. Pulaski Road
Chicago, IL 60623
1-866-65 DAISY
"Every Day Fresh as a Daisy"
http://www.crawfordsausage.com

Anyone familiar with this place?

Crawford Sausage Company is a fairly large factory, one of the last Eastern European businesses remaining in Little Village (the only other I'm aware of is Troha's Shrimp House on 26th, family-owned since 1920). Crawford Sausage started in 1925, when Pulaski Road was known as Crawford Avenue. Their Daisy Brand sausages are sold at a fair number of local delis and markets. It seems Daisy occupies a similar market niche as the upstart Bobak's (1967), moderately priced specialty sausages a big step up from Oscar Mayer et al. but below the quality of some small local artisanal shops. I was aware (from their website) that Daisy made klobosy, or cream sausage, but have never seen it in any store. I've been hoping to stop by the factory to get some but I'm always stymied by their early closing hours (noon on Saturday, closed Sunday). I have my doubts it would measure up to Jim's but you never know. And all this has reminded me I have yet to visit Morini's to see if Jim's klobosy has reappeared in La Grange Park.

Antonius wrote:It depends on what kind of sausages you're after, obviously, but in the present context Italian sausage is what I guess you have in mind, so I'll start there.

Thanks for the list, Antonius. I'm looking for sausage to use on homemade pizzas, in pasta sauces, and also just to fry up for breakfast. So I guess Italian for the first two uses, and any kind for the third.

I've been through Pennsylvania Dutch Country a couple of times on family trips, and I fondly remember how tasty those Amish sausages were...

JC, consider Nottoli Sausage (7652 W. Belmont in Chicago), too. They usually have three or four kinds, one with fennel seed, a plain (salt & pork shoulder), a hot and sometimes Barese style, I think. Despite the handicap of being originally from Lucca, they make very fine sausage....

>>Add magnano duie ponno magn pure tre<<

great, thanks!

JC:

I'm glad Choey wrote in about Nottoli; I haven't been in that store yet but it looks like a nice shop and I think someone else has written about them on this board way back when, saying positive things. They're basically a few blocks around the corner from Riviera so if that area is out of the way for you, you could hit both in one visit and do a comparison.

If you're not so familiar with Barese sausage, I would not especially recommend it for the purposes you list (sauce, pizza). It's very garlicky and would really imblance a sauce badly. What it is great for is frying up or grilling; it's thinner than other types of Italian sausage) and cooks pretty quickly and it can really stand out as a secondo or lunch with some greens and bread. As long as you're in the mood for a massive dose of garlic and can put up with the concomitant godzilla breath. To my more Neapolitan tastes (a regional cuisine more circumspect in its use of garlic), it's something I really have to be in a specific mood for.

And for some reason, I find it doesn't freeze as well as other types of Italian sausage, perhaps because it depends for its particular quality on the freshness of its massive amounts of garlic and parsley. Left over it takes on a nasty edge (at least to my palate), so make a reasonable amount and eat it all up.

Choey:

Addò he imbarat' o Napuletanë?

A

Don Anto, I learned most of the Napolitano I know around the dinner table in the Family Compound (a three flat) on May Street, not far from where you live. The dialect, together with a rudimentary understanding of the Theory of Evolution and Modern Logic, was communicated via the injunction, " "Guaglio', si te vuo' magnà, parla napuletane." As a consequence, my abilities are limited largely to food terms, songs, expletives, and denying culpability for hitting a sibling.

Oh, and I once spent a week in Napule under the direction of a fake Croce scholar named Professore Coppola trying to improve my mastery of 'a lengua 'e Pulecenella. I didn't learn much linguistically, but I did have an excellent sfogliatella each morning. Pensamm' a salute, after all.

one of the last Eastern European businesses remaining in Little Village (the only other I'm aware of is Troha's Shrimp House on 26th, family-owned since 1920).

Hey Rene, isn't Chickies still Eastern European owned (and a damned good Italian Beef, BTW)? On Pulaski, east side a couple of blocks south of 26th, and not to be confused with the Chickies further west on 26th which has different owners. I gotta believe there are more, but they just put a latino face out by the counter most of the time because that is the labor pool.

Great info on sausage, too, once we got past the argument about who has the best, and who invented what. I do love my sausage!

Would also agree that most English sausages are underseasoned abominations, and that the median in Chicago for sausage is much higher than I have experienced elsewhere. But that is hardly an exhaustive survey.

dicksond wrote:Hey Rene, isn't Chickies still Eastern European owned (and a damned good Italian Beef, BTW)? On Pulaski, east side a couple of blocks south of 26th, and not to be confused with the Chickies further west on 26th which has different owners. I gotta believe there are more, but they just put a latino face out by the counter most of the time because that is the labor pool.

Hmm, I was wrong the last time I made a similar statement (that Troha's was the only remaining Eastern European business in Little Village; I'd forgotten about Crawford Sausage) and I'm probably wrong again.

Chickie's Italian Beef (2839 S Pulaski) is clearly a remnant from an earlier era, before Little Village became almost entirely Mexican. I don't know the nationality of the owners, Bob and his wife, but they sure put out a good product. The other Chickie's (5517 W Cermak in Cicero), formerly owned by them, is no slouch either.

I wonder about George's, another fast food place with a couple locations in Little Village. That could well be another older business. George's is interesting because everything on the menu is the same price. Hot dog, taco, pizza, hamburger, Italian beef, it's all $1.25 (maybe the price went up recently). Probably Chicago's cheapest Italian beef.

So, has anyone had the Italian sausage from Crawford Sausage Co.? Does it work well for pizza? I am no longer living in the area and need to find a decent source for mail order Italian sausage. Any help would be great. Are there other mail order places that make decent pizza? I've been told that Scala's is good, too, but they don't list their prices.

Maybe I should repost this as a new topic?

Alternately, does anyone have a recipe to make pizza sausage from scratch? I have a meat grinder.

Thanks!
Garvey

Garvey, for a basic sausage, try the following:

5 lbs pork shoulder, in 1" cubes with plenty of fat
3-4 Tbs coarse salt, not iodized
Lay the cubed pork out evenly on a baking sheet and spread the salt over it evenly. Let it sit for a while (1-2 glasses of a good Brunello, say), then grind.

Optional:
1.5 Tbs fennel seed
1 Tbs ground black or flaked red pepper
1-3 Tbs various herbs (parsley, basil, thyme, or sage)
Make any additions along with the salt (see wine break above).

Start with the pork cold. If you have a big grinder and are doing a lot of meat (say 25 lbs), add an ice cube or two every so often to keep the meat moist and cool. For pizza, my preference would be to add fennel seed and nothing else. You can dink with ingredients all you want, but I'm a simple man: the big decision is either fennel seed or nothing at all.

Hi there. I am new here and have enjoyed reading previous posts. Good stuff. I read posts on Jim's & Morini's and yes, the butcher at Morini's is the former butcher from Jims and the sausage maker also. It is a small store, all homemade sausage including smoked Polish, Italian, Italian w/pepper & cheese, Italian hot, cream sausage, brats, brats w/swiss & Lithuanian. Choice or higher meats. I work there and as it is small, anything you need can be order. Brookfield Brand corned beef flats and whole corned beefs coming in this week for St. Pats. I look forward to this forum, seems like lots of goodies and reviews in store. Thanks