The Omnivore's Dilemma?

For this omnivore, there was no dilemma on Saturday. I'd gotten the equivalent of a press pass for the 2008 Convention of the Wisconsin Association of Meat Processors and was looking forward to a few hours of observing judges diligently looking at, smelling, and tasting meat while trying not to drool on the slabs of bacon. Instead, when I walked into the Marriott West, I was told that they were short-handed – would I be a judge? "You bet your sweet ass I'll be a judge!" I replied. Well, I was a bit more tactful than that. After putting my stuff away I was given a hairnet and white lab coat and joined the judging process which had just started.



My cohort was a 30+ year veteran of the competition named Terry. We were assigned Whole Muscle Jerky and Traditional Bratwurst that was Smoked, Cooked, and Cured. Now, while I like jerky, I knew that judging 26 brands of the stuff would not make my jaws happy. I walked into the judging room to find that Terry had already started the jerky.

Jerky is made by first taking a cut of meat and removing fat. Then you slice it into thin strips, marinate, and then dry or smoke. It's an ancient method of food preservation as people have been doing it for centuries. Note that I judged Whole Muscle Jerky. There was also a Reconstructed Jerky category. If Whole Muscle is a potato chip, then Reconstructed is a Pringle.



Judging jerky – or, indeed, any kind of meat – begins with looking at it. Color – is it too dark or too light? Is the color uniform? Next is the uniformity of shape. Would the jerky look appetizing to a shopper? Smoke streaks or marks from a dirty smoke screen meant points were deducted. One product looked like shoe leather. At this point, we also examined the jerky from a tactile perspective, i.e. – we touched the meat. You don't want it too dry. There was another sample which came as two sizeable slabs of meat which were both incredibly dry. I theorized that it was Fred Flintstone's first and failed attempt at bronto-jerky.

Step 2 is to smell the meat. I was disappointed because most of the jerky had very little aroma. While I didn't need the stuff to be super-pungent, it would have been nice to have had a little more to tantalize my taste buds as I put the stuff into my mouth. This brings us to the next step – tasting. Tasting is actually two-pronged. First there is the flavor of the jerky and then there is the mouth feel. Regarding the latter, a few were too rubbery and a few more too dry, but most had a good texture. Points are taken away for excess connective tissue/gristle but I found that only one product suffered from this.

Taste. Even if a strip of jerky doesn't look perfect or have much aroma, it can still be a joy for your tongue. There was a great variety in flavors of the tastes we sampled. A couple samples, oddly enough, had no seasoning while a few others were heavily peppered and left a burning aftertaste. Yet another had a very pronounced honey flavor. In the end, the winner was one that had a good mouth feel and a flavor which deftly balanced traditional jerky seasoning with smoke. It was from Geiss Meat Service up in Merrill and here's a snap:



Before heading over to the corner table to judge the brats, I strolled around the floor a bit.





(Summer sausages and an example of Luncheon or Jellied Loaf.)

My buddy Ed was judging the Smoked Kielbasa or Polish Sausage and I got a couple snaps of him playing with his meat.





Next up for us was Smoked, Cooked, and Cured Bratwurst. There were 17 entrants in the category. We were assigned a man servant who opened the packages, cut the links, and eventually heated samples for us to taste.



As with the jerky, appearance was judged first. Here, however, we judged both internal and external. Although there was variation, most looked from the outside to be in the expected range of reddish browns and they all were uniform in shape. In fact, we gave high marks to all the products for their appearance. As Terry explained, there was a lot more variation when he started judging back in the 1970s. These days, though, all the sausage makers have basically the same automated equipment which make near-perfect links. The casings were stuffed completely so there were no large pockets of air. On the inside, all of the products had the fat and visible seasonings distributed evenly. I think the only brat to get a strike against it in the appearance department was one brand that made the links too short. Sitting in a bun, the first bite or two would yield only bread.



I don't recall a lot of variety as far as aroma goes. Some yielded very little for my nose while others gave something. Nothing really stood out here. Taste, however, was a different matter. One sausage was quite rubbery while a couple others had very tough skins. These are easy things to dock points for but it got tricky when it came to mouth feel. I personally prefer a coarser grind for most sausages. If the meat is ground too finely, it becomes baby food mush in my mouth very quickly and I just usually like a chunkier, more solid mouth feel. And so the texture scores were often compromises between Terry and myself.

One product had a very pronounced mustard seed flavor while another featured clove. A few were much too greasy. Personal preference has a huge role and I found that Terry tended to like brats that I thought tasted odd. Not bad or rancid, mind you, just that the seasoning didn't taste like a brat to me. A lot of them…lacked umami? They just had a very thin taste or flavors that came sequentially instead of in an enticing gustatory gestalt.

The winner ended up being from Sorg Farm Packing in Darien. Terry liked it more than I did but it wasn't bad.

When we were done judging, I poked around some more and drooled over what is perhaps my favorite meat – bacon. There was regular bacon as well as the flavored varieties.







With the judging done, Ed and I strolled over to the trade show room where we greeted at the door by some sausage sculptures such as this one.



Vendors had tons of items on display such as walk-in smokers, sausage casings, and sanitation equipment galore. One of the odder things I saw was this sampling of condiments you can cut.



Yes, someone had a brick of ketchup (loaf?) and made a few slices. Ditto for mustard, sauerkraut, horseradish, BBQ sauce, and pickle relish. There's a packages of hot dogs ready to eat. No need to dress the dog as everything is already inside. Disguting.

We walked out with bags full of seasoning and marinade samples as well as some sauces. I now have enough marinade mix for about 200 pounds of meat. With the weather turning, I see myself doing a whole lotta grilling soon.