Letters: In Praise of Slow Sausage

As a former restaurateur and now organic sheep farmer, I enjoyed reading “Six Degrees of (Curing) Bacon” [Fall 2011]. The program you describe is much needed to provide continuity for a new generation of butchers and sausage makers.

Not mentioned was any instruction on organic sausage making and curing. I do hope this is covered in your course, as it is desperately needed. The current situation is that nearly all sausage makers throw standard mixes with MSG, artificial flavors, and preservatives into the meat we deliver to them. This is not acceptable for organic folks like me. I’m not interested in fast production. Our ancestors’ sausages relied on the natural flavor of their pasture-grazed livestock and old- fashioned methods like real smoke.

I hope the UW is providing leadership to ensure that this type of sausage making is not relegated to the compost heap of “lost arts.”

Linda Derrickson ’69 Blanchardville, Wisconsin

Published in the Winter 2011 issue