Blueberry Maple Sausage and the Taste of Memory - EMWTTSFM
One of my father’s favorite refrains whenever someone was cooking pork chops was, “Well, you know, they’ve eradicated trichinosis.”
He’d say it with the confidence of a man who had spent years suffering through overcooked pork. Then he would proudly explain that pork chops no longer had to be cooked until every trace of moisture and flavor had been driven out of them. In his mind, the modern world had finally corrected one of history’s great culinary injustices.
I think about that almost every time I eat pork.
Oddly enough, it never crossed my mind as I bit into a blueberry maple sausage link from Tier Three Farms, purchased at the Saturday Farmers’ Market.
From the first bite, it was obvious these were different from the mass-produced links stacked in supermarket coolers. They came from a local farm, were processed by a local butcher, and were sold directly to customers who could shake hands with the people who raised the animals.
These were all-meat sausages — no fillers, no unnecessary distractions. Just pork and flavor.
That matters more in a link than it might in a patty. Patties can lean on the frying pan a little. A higher fat concentration helps hold them together and gives them an advantage as they brown. Links do not have quite the same luxury. The meat is confined by the casing, which makes the sausage seem meatier but also leaves it with fewer places to hide. A good link has to speak for itself.
These did. The blueberry and maple were there, but they were asides to the meat rather than the main event. Too often, flavored breakfast sausages taste more sweet than savory. These didn’t. The fruit added a mild sweetness, while the maple rounded out the pork without turning the links into candy.
The texture helped, too. The casing had a good snap, and the meat was juicy and well seasoned. The pork still tasted like pork. Nothing felt stretched, diluted, or covered up.
Looking down at the breakfast plate, the sausages shared space with scrambled eggs, fresh strawberries and a slice of croissant bread crowned with jam — a small luxury my father would have frowned at. He would have preferred one of Mom’s biscuits.
Yet the sausages never faded into the background. If anything, they tied everything together. The berries echoed the blueberry notes in the sausage, while the savory richness complemented the eggs.
And somewhere during breakfast, I thought about my father.
He would have appreciated these sausages. Not because they were locally sourced or purchased at a farmers’ market. He would have appreciated them because they tasted like pork. Good pork. The kind that doesn’t need fillers, gimmicks, or elaborate marketing campaigns.
Whenever I travel to Florida to visit family, I usually find time to stop at Ward’s Supermarket and pick up Gilchrist County smoked sausage before heading home. It always reminded me of the country sausage that was smoked behind a neighbor’s house when I was growing up.
The texture was substantial. The casing had been darkened and tightened by smoke and heat. The flavor carried notes of hardwood smoke and spices known only to the person tending the smokehouse.
These blueberry maple links are not smoked sausage, and they don’t pretend to be. Yet they stirred the same feelings. They carried the same sense of authenticity.
They reminded me of a time when the best food often came from neighbors: fresh chickens from a nearby farm, milk with cream floating on top, vegetables harvested that morning, tomatoes identified by their size, color, or the family who grew them rather than by whatever name a seed company’s marketing department had chosen for the catalog.
Food like that creates memories because it is connected to people and places. Every meal carries a story.
That is what I found most appealing about Tier Three Farms’ blueberry maple sausage. The links delivered exactly what their name promised, but they also offered something harder to define: a connection to food produced by people we knew, purchased from places we trusted, and enjoyed without much thought beyond whether there would be enough for seconds.
The links came frozen in one-pound packages. I brought home two pounds, along with a variety of brats, including a pound of jalapeño cheese brats. Those are already reserved for the next grill meal, which means there’s a good chance Tier Three Farms will be making another appearance in this column before long.
By the time the plate was empty, I was already thinking about the next Saturday market.
That’s usually the clearest sign that something is worth buying again.
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