(Special to The Denver Post - October 2001)

DENVER
A Cosmopolitan Sausage Town.

By: Bill Boas

When you slice the city's cultural identity into tidbits, Denver
emerges as a `sausage town' equal to its legacy for cows, the oil
patch, sports franchises, and cable networks. The admixture of
recent European immigrants has generated a superb boutique industry
for that ancient convenience food - the sausage.

Wherever Man has used animals for food, sausages have been part of
his menu. Easily made from non-prime cuts of the animal and
processed membranes of viscera, the resulting product was preserved
with salt, spices, smoke, or dried, and provided a convenient meal
while travelling or hunting.

Today, `sausage' or its linguistic equivalent in other languages,
is made the world over in profuse variety depending on ethnic
geography and recipe. The three categories of sausage are; fresh,
cooked, and dry. Fresh sausage must be used immediately, or
depending on temperature, within a few days, while dry sausages can
keep almost indefinitely. Basic ingredients can be meat, poultry,
seafood, or even vegetarian.

However, Denver's sausage-makers follow the European tradition of
pork and beef as principal ingredients. Proximity to packing plants
in Greeley, Nebraska, and Iowa insure a fresh supply of meat
cuttings for the city's producers. Visit almost any specialty meat
store in the Metro area and chances are they produce their own
sausage on the premises.

Oliver's Meat Market on 6th Avenue just east of Marion Street, has
been at it since 1923, said Barry Oliver, the third generation of
what is now a five generation market. "We have one person working
full-time on sausage," he explained. Oliver's makes bulk and link
sausages based on pork and turkey that include Italian, Cajun,
Mediterranean, German, and Scandinavian recipes.

In Bonnie Brae, the Nickless family has operated the Esquire Market
and produced their own specialty breakfast sausage since 1949.
Across town in Lakewood, Marian Balaz, specializes in sausages at
his European Delights deli at 8440 W. Colfax. A Slovakian, he
personally makes fresh, cooked, and dried sausages and weiners from
classic European recipes, and always has some samples on the
counter to taste.

North, at 3206 Wadsworth in Wheat Ridge, is newcomer Paul Plonski's
Sawa Meat & Sausage Co. with a traditional variety of exotically
named sausages from Poland, Germany, and Europe. Gold's Market at
26th Avenue and Kipling produces their own pork sausages in
Italian, Brat, and German varieties, and during the holidays
`hundreds of pounds' of Swedish potato sausage. These are just some
of no doubt scores of sausage makers in the city's ethnic
neighborhoods.

It's the ancient recipes that define the ethnic origin of sausages.
Most recipes have been handed down for literally hundreds of years
by sausage makers. Key ingredients define ethnic patterns. Fennel
for Italian, paprika for Hungarian, Garlic for Polish, with German
`wursts' having an absence of strong spices.

Ethnic names for sausages can be confusing. `Wurst' and `Kolbosa'
or `Kielbasa' are just foreign words for the English `sausage' and
don't necessarily define a specific sausage type.

Unlike large commercial producers, these smaller sausage producers
don't use artificial preservatives or any chemical colorings or
flavorings in their products. That includes the `casings' or
cleaned and processed viscera used to encase the sausage. Natural
hog, sheep, and beef casings are the preferred material for gourmet
natural sausages. They are digestible, and allow the smoking
process to permeate into the sausage mixture. A naturally derived
collegan casing, also digestible, is used for larger diameter
salamis, bolognas, and liverwursts.

The Swiss-German Gutknecht family's Continental Sausage plant at
911 East 75th Avenue is probably the largest local producer of
all-natural sausages in town. They produce over 100 specialty
sausages and meat products and have a retail outlet, the
Continental Deli, at 250 Steele St. in Cherry Creek North.

They ship to all states, and many of the finest local Denver
restaurants according to Eric Gutknecht, production manager of
their modern new plant with state-of-the-art European mixing,
cooking, smoking, and drying equipment. "We insist our suppliers
furnish us with meat no more than a day or two old," he said,
explaining, "the freshness of the meat is the key to excellent
sausage."

A tour of the plant from receiving and shipping includes a spice
room with books of `extremely proprietary recipes' whose mixtures
can only be gleaned from looking at the containers labeled cayenne,
pistachio, and a host of others.

As with other makers, Continental's cutting and mixing equipment
can be set to produce finely emulsified sausage mixtures such as
liverwurst, to the more coarsely cut dried sausages. True to their
own Swiss and German roots, their subtly-flavored German bratwurst
and veal brat is considered the "very finest," by Manfred Georg of
Cherry Creek's cozy European-style Chinook Tavern at 265 Detroit
St. "Flavor is everything in a bratwurst, and we can't buy a better
one in Denver," he added. 

The Boulder Sausage Co. at 513 S. Pierce St. in Louisville, and
Canino's Sausage Co. at 4414 Jason St. in Denver, are also two old-
line and respected wholesale producers of natural no-preservative
sausages. Both ship varieties of German, Italian, Cajun, and
Spanish sausages which are distributed in the major grocery stores
along the front range. They've been cultivating and refining their
recipes since 1961 and 1925 respectively.

The world of sausage types is virtually unlimited, and one needn't
be confined to buying it from others. Modern home food mixing and
processing equipment easily makes sausage-making a possible
addition to any cook's potpourri.

Start by sampling the variety from these fine local makers, and
then visit the cookbook section of your favorite bookstore,
library, or do an Internet search for `sausage making'. A plethora
of sources will be at your disposal. Then you can conjure up your
own secret recipes.

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