Sausage Making? Um…Yes!

I wanted you to read about something, other than my book: Come on Down! (which is still out there waiting to be bought…hint, hint) so this blog is about sausage making. Yes, sausage making! I apologize in advance to all my vegan and vegetarian friends for saying this, but this Italian had a great time making sausage. I try not to eat meat too often, but this was an exception I was willing to make and I’m glad I did.

Last year, I joined the Italian Sons and Daughters of America, thinking it might be fun to make some new friends here. My parents would be thrilled. I was lucky to sign up with Lodge #174 in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, who are the nicest people and really fun too.

We are led by Dr. Dan Strinkoski (the Italian must be on his mom’s side), a Pittsburgh dentist and passionate Italian whose middle name must be “Fun.” He has great energy and arranges for this group to go to baseball and hockey games, concerts, pasta e fagioli nights, and more! I think I’ve found my people.

Sausage making is something my parents always did. The great thing about making it yourself is you know exactly what’s gone into it and now that I’ve made it I can say I definitely never appreciated how much work it was for my parents. But, despite the work, we had a ball.

The gracious members of ISDA let me try my hand at every task, except for washing dishes and rinsing out the casings, which was fine with me! Gino did the dishes and Mike was in charge of rinsing the casings.

We all cut our pork into small chunks, then it went to the next stage, grinding. Kathy let me take a turn putting those chunks into the grinder. Even with two hands it took some might. Of course you don’t see me doing this because I was the one taking these photos, but trust me I did it.

I got to mix it together with my hands after the expert spice mixers added all the necessary ingredients, including one I’d never seen used by my parents when making sausage, it was pepper paste. The man in the photo to the left was adding the pepper paste and the wine and the other man (you can only see his hand) measured out the herbs, but like a true Italian I saw him throw in a few extra herbs to finish off a container. My Uncle Richard, who almost never measured, would be proud.

Then I tried putting the slippery little casings onto the sausage funnel. (And yes, they are pork intestines, which can gross you out if you really think about it.) Apparently, the intestines have the best snap when you bite into the sausage which can also gross you out if you think about it, so don’t think about it.

It does make me wonder who the first person was who said, “Hey, let’s take these intestines, empty them, fill them with something else and see how that tastes!” At least nothing is wasted that way. My parents like many of their generation did not believe in wasting anything, so all parts of the animal were used.

That’s why I’d occasionally come home to a glorious garlicky smell, open the oven door and jump back in horror at the split head of a goat, covered in buttery bread crumbs, sizzling away in front of me. I’d look at my mom with a sour expression and say, “Oh Ma, that’s gross.” She always responded, “No, ittsa good! You should try it.” I couldn’t bring myself to taste it, but that was the mentality. And, as I always tell people, the one thing we can all do about global warming is: Don’t waste food. So, our ancestors and my goat head-roasting mom were on the right track.

The coolest part was filling the casings with the ground meat. I am proud to say I think we only had one blowout. That’s when the casing has a weak spot and all the ground meat comes oozing out. Then I let Julienne have her turn at filling the casings and I found myself winding the sausage into a beautiful circle as she did her magic.

Julienne and I were naturals at filling the casings with meat, at least that’s what the men we were working with told us. I was also a natural at diving into the gutter and jumping on every double entendre you can imagine as we filled the casings with ground pork and they emerged plump and round.

The sausage got grilled at Dr. Dan’s, then placed in the oven to finish cooking. We all agreed, after tasting our handiwork, that we did a great job. The sausage was delicious and I will definitely be making more. The recipe we used is below. How many pounds of pork butts? Who knows? Remember these are Italians we’re dealing with here. We’re lucky we got a recipe! But the average pork butt runs from six to ten pounds. Good luck!

If you’re interested in joining, here is the page where I found the ISDA and signed up https://orderisda.org/membership/ There are lots of fun events coming up this year and I look forward to them! And you DON’T have to be an Italian to join! Several of the people I’ve spoken to at events have not been Italian, but love the culture, the camaraderie and the food!

As always (and definitely not mandatory) if you enjoy this blog and would like to be a supporter so I can dig myself out of the horrendous debt I’ve put myself in while self-publishing, just click on buymeacoffee.com/FranTunno And thanks so much to all of you who are supporting my blog!