October is National Sausage Month!

Most of the time I’m happy in my adopted State of Texas, but National Sausage Month is one of those times that I miss the Midwest where I grew up. I know there are some good butchers down in the Hill Country, but not many of them seem to have made it as far north as Dallas.

In the Midwest every town, no matter how small, has a butcher shop and sometimes more than one. There was a fierce rivalry between Pleva’s and Mikowski’s butcher shops, and their partisans, in Cedar, Michigan, near where I grew up. Even nearer my home in Empire, Michigan, old Mark Deering, who was still butchering when he was past ninety, was renowned for being able to shave a pound of hamburger off of a bare bone.

The best butcher shop that I’ve ever seen, however, is Kramarczuk’s in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Kramarczuk’s makes garlic sausages so sweet and flavorful that you could eat them for dessert. Just thinking of them makes my mouth water.

In all you can buy (by my last count) forty-three varieties of sausages at Kramarczuk’s. The picture is only a small sampling.

National Sausage Month really calls for a road trip. Just turn right (north) on Interstate 35 and you could be at Kramarczuk’s in less than fifteen hours! But if you can’t get away just now, they also sell over the telephone. You can find the number on their website: http://www.kramarczuk.com/index.html.

Sorry, but they don’t ship to Alaska or Hawaii.