Well, Boo-Hiss!

Sue says that March in Missouri always comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion, and here we go. They're predicting up to 5 inches of snow here in Jeff (though as of last night, it wasn't looking like there was much chance at all). So, pooh.

Although I'm not using crutches at this point (I'm "weight-bearing"), and therefore balance on a slippery surface isn't such a problem, I'm still in a cast. Since I'm not allowed to get it wet, and since Hermann is getting just about the same amount of snow we're getting . . . I guess we have to put off our trip to the Wurstfest. Tomorrow the driving will be better. And so will the limping.

I hope there's some sausage left by the time we get there!

But dang, I'm sorry to be missing the Braunschweiger Ball!

. . . Next year.

32nd Annual Wurstfest

Hey, folks, I know this is late notice, but I'd be horribly remiss if I didn't remind you about Hermann, Missouri's annual Wurstfest.

It's this weekend! Here's a link to it.

There's something new this year, which I found out via a kind comment by Constance LaBoube--check this out!

A fun new addition to the Wurstfest is the Bank Bar Braunschweiger Ball. This event, the first of its kind ever last year, will begin at 7 p.m., Saturday, March 26 at the corner of 2nd and Schiller Streets (115) in Hermann. Contestants will be entering Braunschweiger Balls for judging. This is a zany, quirky, fun event. Prizes will be awarded - 1st and 2nd - best tasting. 1st - Best Presentation. Music will be provided by The Bluff-Tones. There is no charge for entering, but donations to the food pantry will be accepted by the band the evening of the event.

Whoaaaah, Nelly!!! A Braunschweiger Ball! It's a braunschweiger-pâté-making contest and a dance! What a perfect Opulent Opossum kind of event! (As you know, for a while I was on a roll with my "Jefferson City Braunschweiger Reports"! I even shared a Lutheran-ladies retro braunschweiger ball recipe with you.)

(The only thing that slowed me down on that was the realization that such activity was leading me toward the brain sandwiches up at the Towne Grille--you know: "Food at it's best" [sic]--and I'm not sure I'm ready to "go there.")

But I'm soooooo ready to hit the road for Hermann this weekend!

I hope to see some of you there--this is an awesome "foodie" event. You get to sample locally produced, gourmet sausages from many different small meat markets. And then, you can buy the ones you like! We always bring a cooler, buy a bunch, and freeze sausage to be used over the next months.




Plus, there's all the music and dancing, wine-tasting and winery tours, that new Tin Mill microbrewery to visit, the weiner-dog races, museums and historic sites, etc., etc.

Again, here's the link for more information on Hermann's wonderful Wurstfest.

And (for fun), here's a link to my "Wurstjaegering" post I wrote a few years ago describing the event. I like to think it's fun to read. I hope you'll agree!

See you there!

Wurstfest Reminder

Just a reminder! Put it on your calendar: Hermann's 31st Annual Wurstfest will be held Saturday and Sunday, March 27 and 28!




I told you all about the Wurstfest last year, and if you like sausage, then you simply must go this year. They don't tend to change the festival radically from year to year, so what I told you in my "Wurstjaegering" post pretty much goes the same for this year.

Only I see this year, in addition to the Dachshund "derby dash" race and "fashion show," they're also having a "longest weiner dog contest." Oh, my. That sounds like something to see!

But seriously, though, the emphasis is on all the fantastic gourmet sausage that's being made by Missouri's sausage makers.




As in the past, the two locations (each with different sausage makers) are the Stone Hill Winery Pavilion and the Hermannhof Festhalle; a single fee gets you into both venues.

Bring a cooler! Basically, you walk around to each sausage maker's tables and sample their various sausages. The variety is mind-boggling. When you decide you want a sausage, you buy it directly from that vendor. Most of them have packages of frozen sausage all ready to go.

I highly recommend Schubert's horseradish sausage, which tastes great without blowing your face off, and their andouille, which could blow your face off. Their kielbasa is a revelation; it has nothing to do with that greasy, over-salted insult to swine that you get at the grocery store.

In June, we had to drive to Schubert's just on the other side of St. Louis, to get more of the kielbasa and horseradish sausage. Yes, it's that good.

And if Kurzweil's has it, snatch up some of their bratwurst flavored with portobello mushrooms that were sauteed in Norton red wine. Their "Zorba the Greek" sausage is really good, too.

Williams Brothers had a delicious sausage with apples and cinnamon that we liked a lot, and their traditional-style summer sausage was really excellent.

But most of all, look for new styles and flavors that you haven't tried before.

Oh! --Are you worried about how healthy this is for you? Here is what we often do: We make a dinner of a bunch of sauteed or steamed vegetables, brown rice, and then a single sauteed tilapia filet and one gourmet sausage link. Each of us gets half a piece of fish, and half a piece of sausage. How about them apples?

Anyway, Hermann's Wurstfest is highly recommended. I'm telling you now, so you can put it on your calendar. You seriously don't want to miss this.

Here's a link to Hermann's Web site; click on "calendar" and scroll down to March 27 and 28.

And again, see my last year's post for the real low-down and for more pictures.

Celebrate German Heritage Recipe #3: Bratwurst

Okay, this isn’t really a “recipe” so much as it is a cheerleading session for some of our local and regional sausage makers, all of whom I strongly endorse.

By the way, the sausages I list are just the tip of the iceberg for all these producers. Visit their Web sites to see the complete bounty of offerings.


First, there’s Schubert’s Packing Co., in Millstadt, Illinois. I’m in love these days with their horseradish brats, which don’t blow your eyes out but do possess a lovely flavor of horseradish.

Like most of the local sausage makers, the folks at Schubert’s are really into the German styles. Just looking at their brats alone, other types include: beer, Cajun, cheddar, cherry, garlic, green onion, Hungarian kolbasz (also one of my favorites), maple, “regular,” Italian sasita, sauerkraut, and lots more.




Then, there’s Williams Brothers Meat Co., in Washington, Missouri. They make some really excellent fresh sausages, again, with an emphasis on European and German styles.

Their fresh sausages include these wursts: jalapeno brats, beer and onion brats, apple sausage, potato sausage, cherry sausage, Italian sausage, chorizo, Merquez (lamb sausage), Swiss and mushroom brats, weistwurst, and more.




Kurzweils’ Country Meats, more convenient to the western part of the state, is another place to get your sausages this fall. Among their offerings are cheddar brats, chilli cheese sausage, garlic pepper sausage, Italian and Polish sausages, jalapeno brats, smoked bratwurst, Swedish potato sausage, and tomato basil sausage. They’re the ones who had the brats flavored with portobello mushrooms sautéed in Missouri Norton red wine, which was possibly the best thing I’ve ever put into my mouth.

(I wish I had a photo of a package of Kurzweils' sausages, but we ate them all up!)


In Central Missouri, we have the Swiss Meat and Sausage Co., which is located in the tiny town of Swiss (not far south of Hermann).

Like many of the others, they will also make up sausage for you, using your own recipe—or, say, your great-grandpa’s recipe from way back when. They’re the company the Old Munichburg Association uses to make up the Hott & Asel–recipe sausage every year for fund-raising purposes.

And Swiss Meats also offers fresh sausages that will knock your socks off. How does this sound, for example: Swiss-style bratwurst, Munich-style sausage, Nuremberg-style bratwurst, smoked cheese brats, smoked cottage sausage, apple-cinnamon sausage, smoked sweet pepper and onion brats, pepper-jack brats, smoked beer and cheddar brats, chipotle brats, “flaming hot” brats, Hawaiian brats, butter parsley potato sausage, garlic butter brats, BBQ flavored brats, turkey and cranberry brats . . .




. . . As for how to cook these deliciously divine sausages, I’ll leave it to you. But I will gently recommend that the finer the sausage, the more you should be careful not to boil the frickin’ flavor out of them or to overwhelm their delicate subtleties with heavy-handed beer-braising.


For more on local sausage producers and their products, see my post on the Hermann Wurstfest, which is held every March.

To emphasize once again: The sausages I’ve listed for each producer aren’t at all exhaustive—I haven’t mentioned the summer sausages, jerky, liverwursts, blood sausages, and much, much more. There’s a lot of overlap, yet they’re always coming up with new brat flavors. Check their Web sites; give them a ring. They’re nice people!

God’s Own Potato Chips

I just had lunch, and I’m listening to Hindu Devotional Sounds on BBC Asian Network. So I hope you’ll indulge me here in the connection I’m about to make.

Mmm, yes, lunch was really tasty today. I did the Jeff City thang and had myself a braunschweiger sandwich. I’ll bet if you took a poll of the eating habits of Missourians, you’d find that Jefferson Citians eat way more braunschweiger per capita than all the other people in the state.

I did it up good—nice wheat bread with a thin slice of Swiss cheese, lightly toasted, then topped with lettuce, sliced green onion, tomatoes, cucumber, and braunschweiger from Williams Brothers in Washington, Missouri. (Remember I told you about the Wurstfest?)

But more about braunschweiger later; along with my sandwich I enjoyed a handful of God’s own potato chips. You think I’m joking? I’m not. I’m serious—ask my friends. I don’t even like potato chips, popcorn, and all that kind of stuff very much. So if I’m motivated to sing devotional praises about some kinda potato chip, you’re going to pay attention, right? Right.

These chips—Ballreich’s—are from Tiffin, Ohio. We pick them up when we’re doing car trips to visit Sue’s folks in northern Ohio; we get a few bags at a time and then try to make them last. (And indeed, you can buy them online.)

There is something different about them. The kind we like the most are the original “marcelled” type—the term was popular as a way of describing that wavy-ironed hairstyle popular among women in the 1920s, doncha know; apparently Bellreich’s is the only potato chip company to use the term.

So what makes them so dang good? Is it that they use specific types of potatoes, Norchip, Snowden, and Atlanta, all (I’m pretty sure) Ohio-grown? . . . Maybe it’s the fat they fry them in? I don’t know. But they have a je ne sais quoi that sets them apart.

So here was my thought today as I experienced potato chip heaven. (Forgive me.)

In chapter 7 of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is explaining his nature to Arjuna. It’s a lovely passage, full of poetry, that’s been sticking with me recently. No wonder it came to me as I was munching this afternoon. So here it is, BG 7.8-10, from the Juan Mascaró translation (Penguin, 1962):

I am the taste of living waters and the light of the sun and the moon. I am OM, the sacred word of the Vedas, sound in silence, heroism in men.

I am the pure fragrance that comes from the earth and the brightness of fire I am. I am the life of all living beings, and the austere life of those who train their souls.

And I am from everlasting the seed of eternal life. I am the intelligence of the intelligent. I am the beauty of the beautiful.

. . . To which I would like to add, “I am the yum of the Ballreich’s potato chip.”

(Apologies to Lord Krishna, but I suspect the deity knows what I mean and laughs merrily at my enthusiasms.)

Wurstjaegering

Today we attended the Thirtieth Annual Hermann Wurstfest to sample sausages. Talk about yer slow foods and localvorism. Talk about your local color! And things that are sincere, and good, and true.

If you’re not already familiar with it, let me explain a little. Hermann is only one of many Missouri towns boasting a strong and continuing German cultural heritage, but it’s the one that’s made the most of it in terms of tourism and “branding” (as marketing folks call it). It’s a picturesque town with hills and lots of historic buildings. It’s on the south side of the Missouri River, between Jefferson City and St. Louis. (Now you can find it on Google Maps.)

Most people think of the town’s wineries and Oktoberfest first among the “things to do” in the Hermann area, but there are lots of other attractions and festivals. Perhaps it’s best to go in midweek, hole up in one of their charming bed and breakfasts, and simply . . . slow down.

But one of our favorite times to visit Hermann is during the Wurstfest. The sausage tasting, competition, and judging is just part of this springtime festival. There are wiener dog races (and costume and talent contests—all very popular with children), a display of antique sausage-making equipment (ooh, shudder-shudder: renewed respect for the whole butcher “thing”), and a whole-hog sausage breakfast at the fire department.

Of course, all the local wineries have special tastings, tours, sausage samplings, and so on. If you haven’t taken a tour of the Stone Hill cellars, you should. You not only learn how wines are made (in case you didn’t know), but also see their historic cellars and learn about the state’s winemaking history.

There’s a great view of the town from the hilltop at Stone Hill, which naturally is enhanced when you and your sweetie are relaxing with glasses of their Norton. Hermannhof Winery, downtown on Highway 100 along Frene Creek, has a wonderful wine garden where you can sit comfortably with your companions and enjoy a bottle of Spring Blush. Five more local wineries and the town’s brewpub were open this weekend for tastings and tours.

Also, the Deutschheim State Historic Site is a must-see for anyone visiting Hermann, and then if you’re going there, you’d better visit the German School Museum as well. This year, they were offering free admission to the museum to anyone who’d purchased admission to the Wurstfest.

Admission? Yes, six bucks for adults, but it’s worth it. Get your hand stamped, and you can go in and out of two sausage-tasting venues: The Stone Hill Winery Pavilion (where we went again this year) and the Hermannhof Festhalle downtown (where we’ve been in previous years).

One of the big draws for me each year is the music and dancing. Today accordionist Marilyn Loehnig of the Loehnig Family Band played at the Stone Hill Pavilion from noon to four. We always enjoy hearing her play those happy German polkas and other melodic favorites. (Remember when music had a melody?) She even the temerity to play that notoriously catchy Disney song—you know the one, about the “planet” being “of a little, little size”?—surprisingly it didn’t get stuck in my head. (Another polka tune did instead.)

Yes, the German music, of course, and then there’s the Wurstjaegers. A word about them: If I was at all interested in dancing, that’s the first group I would join. They look like they have such a great time, doing all these traditional German folk dances. Every time I see them I wish for more hours in my week, in my life! The group formed in 1948, and two charter members were dancing with them today. One of them is looking forward to her ninety-second birthday!

The group’s signature dance is a Wurstjaeger dance, wherein they act out the sausage-hunting (wurst-jaegering!) that traditionally took place the Tuesday night before Ash Wednesday: The menfolks go door-to-door with a carrying stick on which they collect, in dangling abundance, the whole town’s store of sausages; then they bring it all to the local festival hall for the Fat Tuesday “eat up all the sausage” feast. It’s a Fastnacht tradition—the German version of Mardi Gras.

On to the sausage. Hermann basically becomes a top-flight sausage market at Wurstfest. Bring money. Bring an ice chest. Be prepared to stock up. Your freezer at home will be honored to hold such special items for you.

Despite what I’ve written recently about pâté de foie gras, Sue and I are not exactly true devotees of the butcher’s art. We tend toward vegetarianism. We don’t eat a lot of meat; the food on our dinner plates doesn’t “orbit” the meat as a gravitational center. Meat, for us, is for stir-fries, for example. It’s an “ingredient.” That is, unless there’s something special about it . . . like when I marinate a sauerbraten for days, turning and massaging it, and cook it for hours before a big family gathering. Or, well . . . if we’ve got some gourmet sausage or something . . .

The judging and awards ceremony took place yesterday, so the vendors had their plaques positioned prominently near their winning sausages. Helping you to decide, of course.

There were five sausage vendors at the Stone Hill Pavilion: Heintz Processing (from Cuba) (Mo., of course!), Stonie’s Sausage Shop (Perryville, Mo.), Williams Brothers Meat Market (Washington, Mo.), Kurzweil’s Country Meats (Garden City, Mo.), and Schubert’s Packing Co. (Millstadt, Ill.). The biggest line was for Schubert's—they bring a huge variety of sausages to sample. It’s almost overwhelming.

But I can narrow my selections down immediately by category: I’m not into the “snack sticks” and jerky, and there’s only so much of the “pizza brats,” “bacon cheeseburger brats,” and “pepper jack Polish sausage” that I can even think about. And I really don’t see the point of “sauerkrautwurst,” because to me sauerkraut is supposed to be cooked and served with the bratwurst, not in it—it’s far better to enjoy the simple brat with the kraut in its traditional position, hugging and cradling the brat—on the outside, the way nature intended.

I didn’t buy any maple sausage this year, even though I always enjoy tasting it. It tastes just like breakfast. But for some reason, I’d rather dip regular sausage into my syrup when I’m having pancakes.

Many of the vendors, being full-time meat companies, also had other meats besides sausages—cured hams, bacons, kabobs, BBQ pork, turkeys, and so on. But I wasn’t shopping for that stuff today.

There were definitely some very special wursts available. Potato sausage? (Hmmm! Very smooth and mild!) Ukrainian bratwurst? (What’s that like?) Some really yummy andouilles. Chorizo. Several types of Italian-style sausages.

And there were all these traditional kinds of wursts and more: Nuernberger, Krakow, Thuringer, mettwurst, Hungarian kolbasz, bockwurst, braunschweiger, head cheese, blutwurst, leberwurst, scrapple, and more. A wonderment of sausages.

Unusual critters can become sausage, too: Duck salami, summer sausage made with elk or buffalo, and even chicken. We picked up some Italian chicken sausage with sun-dried tomatoes and Asiago cheese. It was light, but incredibly delicious—the flavors bloomed in my mouth as I chewed. This is food to savor.

The Wurstfest is the place to find great, fresh sausage and buy it directly from the butchers who made it. Schubert’s Packing makes a kielbasa that makes the shrink-wrapped stuff at the grocery taste like nothing more than a big pink crayon—well, that, or something made out of silicone—flavored primarily with MSG. The Schubert’s kielbasa is meaty and much leaner than the supermarket kind. The flavor was nuanced. I had to get some more of that.

The sausages that always draw the most oohs and ahhs are the flavored brats, the sausages with unusual ingredients. Last year my grand discovery was a bratwurst flavored with portobello mushrooms that had been sautéed in Stone Hill Norton (which is a full-bodied red wine, aged in oak). The people at Kurzweil’s Country Meats had it on their table . . . Whoa, Nelly! That one put me in sausage heaven. Last year, I couldn’t wait to get up to the cashier lady to place my order. I hope they won a prize for it. Whoo, doggies! Words fail me. . . . It was awesome, served with simple mashed potatoes and a lightly dressed salad of fresh greens—it didn’t need anything else.

So this year, I had my money out and everything, and the Kurzweil’s people had sold out of it! But there was plenty else to occupy my interest. They had a good applewurst that had big chunks of apple in it, and we had to pick up some of their roasted red pepper and asparagus sausage, as well as something they had named in honor of “Zorba the Greek,” which was basically a straight-ahead sausage with a good blend of herbs (thyme and so forth). I’m thinking it would be good on a pizza, or on pita.

Schubert’s, as usual, had scads of sausages to try, and it was hard to decide, but their bratwurst with horseradish was unique and good enough we knew we needed to pick up a package of that. Williams Brothers has a pork sausage with apples and cinnamon that was another automatic “keeper.” Williams also had won an award for their traditional-style summer sausage, and it was another automatic standout, something to host a party over.

I suppose I could have written this and complained about the weather (it was pretty cold, and there was still snow on the ground from yesterday), and I could have complained about the lines (though they were much better than last year), but instead I wanted to just rave about the sausage and the care and creativity that these small meat companies put into their work.


It’s just fun to see big grown men standing around and wearing hot-dog hats (like Larry Schubert wore as he sold sausage and laughed, his eyes wrinkling in merriment). Other men wore huge grins on their faces while sporting tee-shirts that promised: “Thick, hot, and juicy!” And the Kurzweil’s people had a new slogan this year: Eat Our Meat.


There’s something ancient, even primitive about the making of sausage—turning the less-than-choice bits of the beast into something irresistibly delicious—and about the celebration that accompanies it. When the Rhineland Wurstjaegers dance about the bounty and abundance of sausage, they are performing, in a specific, sophisticated, ritualized way, an act of thanksgiving that every single human can understand.