Food that I ate growing up turns out to be rather different than what other families had on their dinner tables. I really didn't realize it at the time. In fact, it hits me on a regular basis these days as that now I am a parent. My daughter isn't eating standard Americana fare either. She's getting healthy - or unhealthy, if you know the cuisine at all - doses of Ukrainian food: borscht, numerous salads that are potato based, dried fish (RIVKA!), and other foods. Often my personal realizations about my diet growing up happen when I am talking about what my daughter is eating. It often goes something like: Avrora's eating x and we never did when I was growing up. We ate Y instead. The other person in the conversation often looks at me strange at first and then says something to the effect of 'we never ate Y either."
Those are not the only times that I get that set of realizations. Back in college - or perhaps more properly, living in southern New Mexico - I had a rather rude awakening. What other people called 'bratwurst' was not what I grew up with at all. The nasty stuff they were peddling was filled coarsely ground pork that even had the wrong color. They're was a fleshy, grey that would turn brown when cooked. The ones I grew up with were white. They were also flavoured different. Sometimes the peddled stuff didn't have much taste at all, but that's an aside. There would be a handful of sausages that I would encounter from childhood like this, but the bratwurst was the most traumatic: it ahd been a huge favourite when I was a kid and not being able to eat it at least once in a while as an adult seemed like one of those petty insults that life occasionally tosses at you. The last place I could find it - erratically - was in Los Alamos and only now and again. Since I didn't visit LA that often after August 1992, well, I didn't have a chance to see if they had it at all.
Now, don't get me wrong, I developed an intense fixation for New Mexico green chile - which not even an excellent sausage could replace - but good sausage was not something that was around (other than Chorizo, which is excellent, but not the same at all!).
Then came my move to the SF Bay Area. Put away the sausage jokes, you NMican twits! There happened to be a lot more out here. I actually found a number that I like, but for the longest time, muy favourite to munch on was bockwurst. The one I like is a white variant. I've also developed a taste for a variant of british bangers. One day, when I was shopping with Avrora in the produce store we prefer (Berkeley Bowl), we were bolting across the always busy store to get to a bathroom (potty-training, such a joy! but, dear lord worth it!) and I noticed by chance something labeled "bratwurst" and it was white! I didn't have a chance to get it then, but later, oh yeah. Lyuda didn't care for it, but when I bit in, I definitely knew what I'd found. It wasn't exactly the same, but really damned close.
And, yes, it was damned good.
OTOH, even as a kid, I never did develop a taste for blutwurst. I also never developed a taste for limburger either, but that's not a sausage, I think, unless its one four score old.
*green look*
On the gripping hand though, Avrora's definitely going to get a different POV on food than even I do. The other night, we had bockwurst, steamed artichokes (a current favourite of hers and ours) and couscous w/ fried mushrooms and onions. Upon reflection, maybe I can get my wife to make okroshka. That stuff is quite good too.
Those are not the only times that I get that set of realizations. Back in college - or perhaps more properly, living in southern New Mexico - I had a rather rude awakening. What other people called 'bratwurst' was not what I grew up with at all. The nasty stuff they were peddling was filled coarsely ground pork that even had the wrong color. They're was a fleshy, grey that would turn brown when cooked. The ones I grew up with were white. They were also flavoured different. Sometimes the peddled stuff didn't have much taste at all, but that's an aside. There would be a handful of sausages that I would encounter from childhood like this, but the bratwurst was the most traumatic: it ahd been a huge favourite when I was a kid and not being able to eat it at least once in a while as an adult seemed like one of those petty insults that life occasionally tosses at you. The last place I could find it - erratically - was in Los Alamos and only now and again. Since I didn't visit LA that often after August 1992, well, I didn't have a chance to see if they had it at all.
Now, don't get me wrong, I developed an intense fixation for New Mexico green chile - which not even an excellent sausage could replace - but good sausage was not something that was around (other than Chorizo, which is excellent, but not the same at all!).
Then came my move to the SF Bay Area. Put away the sausage jokes, you NMican twits! There happened to be a lot more out here. I actually found a number that I like, but for the longest time, muy favourite to munch on was bockwurst. The one I like is a white variant. I've also developed a taste for a variant of british bangers. One day, when I was shopping with Avrora in the produce store we prefer (Berkeley Bowl), we were bolting across the always busy store to get to a bathroom (potty-training, such a joy! but, dear lord worth it!) and I noticed by chance something labeled "bratwurst" and it was white! I didn't have a chance to get it then, but later, oh yeah. Lyuda didn't care for it, but when I bit in, I definitely knew what I'd found. It wasn't exactly the same, but really damned close.
And, yes, it was damned good.
OTOH, even as a kid, I never did develop a taste for blutwurst. I also never developed a taste for limburger either, but that's not a sausage, I think, unless its one four score old.
*green look*
On the gripping hand though, Avrora's definitely going to get a different POV on food than even I do. The other night, we had bockwurst, steamed artichokes (a current favourite of hers and ours) and couscous w/ fried mushrooms and onions. Upon reflection, maybe I can get my wife to make okroshka. That stuff is quite good too.
4 comments:
What sort of bratwurst did you grow up with, and what sort have you found? There are a number of formulations. Sounds like you had one closer to weisswurst on the sausage continuum when you were growing up, though a coarser pork one is a legitimate formulation too. (There are different recipes for different uses.)
Also, how are you cooking them? simmered in beer w/an onion keeps them white. grilling will brown them -- but it will be like browning bread, there isn't a wholesale color change. The only ones I've had which turn fully brown have been in German restaurants in the US outside of the Midwest, where they broil them. Might as well be kielbasa (which I also love, but if I wanted something like kielbasa, I would have ordered kielbasa).
Also, I dunno if Seymour Cray drank the stuff, but a perfect accompaniment would be Chippewa Falls' own Leinenkugel's. its distribution is a little bizarre though. They go well with inexpensive Riesling too.
I figured out after the fact that they have a nontrivial contribution from the weisswurst style. The ones I found are merely labelled 'bavarian bratwurst'. I am guessing that the reason that I got such a dose of sud ob Weißwurstäquator food is because my dad spent a large part of his childhood in southern Germany (Army brat!). He was also in Berlin, Panama, DC, and Washington state.
I cook them the way my dad taught me. Simmer down with very low water and then lightly (VERY LIGHTLY) brown on each side in a sauce pan. My wife thinks I'm a heathen - and based on reading it is probably true - since I eat the skin.
BTW, I *HATE* Ukrainian bockwurst. Nasty stuff. Tastes closer to baloney.
Double BTW, when we go shopping in the Russian market in SF, they have a platter with samples of the different sausages they have. Most to me are unpalatable. However there are some that are quite good. There's one that's heavy on the pepper - for Russian's, understand - that I rather enjoy. I offered some to my daughter and the lady's behind the counter all but flipped "Nononono! Spicy!" with Russian accents got all but spat at me by the women in the meat section. They quickly offered me some baloney - Russian variety, ick - for Avrora. Avrora took it, made a face, and gave it back after a bite. Along with the bite. I gave her the 'spicy' sausage and she wolfed it down and wanted more. The shocked expressions were more than mildly amusing. Old Worlders. tsk.
Usinger's of Milwaukee does mail order, but Trader Joe's carries a few of their sausages as well, including a pre-cooked bratwurst -- it might not be to your taste, but it won't have any nasty ingredients in it. Natural casing, mild but flavorful spices, cooks whitish-grey, and the price at TJ's is right. They also do a fine weisswurst, if you can find it.
(I love summer sausage, but it's hard to find in NYC. When I go back to the motherland, I buy ten, fifteen pounds of different local brands, and they're all different, from the texture to the fermentation culture to the curing.)
Bratwurst.. hmmm. I was born in Wisconsin, so Bratwurst was a weekly event,my father (born in Bavaria) would simmer them on a low heat in a large iron pan. He would let the water or beer slowly dissipate,and the Brats would get really brown but not burnt. I went back to Bavaria,and guess what, no Bratwurst, they did have Bratwurstel,which was a long skinny white sausage,simmered over low heat, when I put the Bratwurstel between a large bun, the Germans went crazy laughing and pointing, I heard one say, crazy Amerikaner alles ist McDonalds. So I guess I committed a Faux Paus.
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