Dispatch From Hamann Charcuterie

I'd been looking forward to discovering what Hamann Charcuterie was doing with pigs these days since I heard that there was a storefront at Northside Town Center. A couple weekends ago I finally went when it was open which was a Saturday evening. Since my camera was somewhere in a pile of other stuff at home, I have no mouth-watering photos of glorious bacon for you. Instead, let me offer a few words.

The place is rather empty. While there is a display case, there's not much else. However, I presume from a stray ladder and a general look of they're-working-on-it that this will change soonish. I'm not sure if it was simply because of the time of day that I was there, but the selection was underwhelming. There was chorizo, smoked chorizo, bacon, breakfast sausage, smoked turkey breast, andouille, mortadella, and perhaps another item. I walked out with a half pound of bacon and an equal amount of breakfast sausage.

The bacon was superb with its (applewood?) smoked goodness while the sausage was very tasty. Don't be fooled, though. Hamann's breakfast sausage isn't your usual sage-laced pork. Not only is the flavor different but cooking it actually leaves fat in your pan unlike so most commercial sausages. I fully intend to go back for more and to try some of their other products so that the next time I write about them, it won't be a week afterwards.

I should probably head over there soon as I'm scared that the charcuterie won't be around very much longer with their prices. The andouille and chorizo were $11.99/lbs. The other prices that I recall were the aforementioned breakfast sausage and bacon were both $9.99/lbs. A pound of bacon can be had for about $3 at Woodman's and I can go to the Jenifer Street Market where just about everything is marked up for the well-heeled denizens of the Marquette Neighborhood and get Nueske's bacon for about $7.60/lbs. I'd love to be rich enough to be able to throw $12 of andouille in my gumbo but the thing about gumbo is that it's poor people food. I should be able to make a giant pot of it that will last me a week for less than $12. But I'll definitely make a batch with the expensive stuff when the air gets that fall chill just to try it out.

I hope that Hamann brings in the Maple Bluff crowd and/or has secured contracts to supply restaurants with pork because I'd like to be able to get some premium sausage and microcured bacon when I can afford it.