In praise of Jimmy Dean sausage

[Jenise]

One of these days, I'm going to have to cook the whole one pound chub for Bob and I, or maybe just me!, so that I can finally get as much of this heavenly meat as I truly crave versus settling for the two patties I deem sufficient for ongoing good health.

When it comes to food beloved from childhood, there isn't much--in fact, maybe there's nothing else--about which I can say, especially when a corporate buy-out turns it into something hugely mass-produced, that it 1) hasn't changed for the worse, or 2) hasn't changed at all or 3) lost its appeal as my tastes changed.

But Jimmy Dean sausage hasn't changed one iota. Okay, they added sage and maple flavors, but the Jimmy Dean Hot that I fell in love with oh so long ago is exactly as it originally was before Jimmy sold the company to whoever. The flavor remains complex of seasoning and balanced of salt, and the texture--the texture!!--has maintained its exquisitely fine, crumbly texture.

Of course, you have to cook it right. The chub will cut into 8 perfect half inch patties. A slight squish from the palm of your hand will give each a nice flat surface for the pan. For the pan, preferable is a cast iron skillet on medium so that the sausage can cook to well done without burning, and once it's done you have to put the patties between paper towels and lightly squish out any remaining liquid fat. That crumble I mentioned is best when the sausage is dry and doesn't squirt back at you.

That's it. No sausage is better. No fancy store-made sausage has ever been its equal. Some are good, but most are over-salted and over-seasoned, manly meat-eater sausages that cook up tough and full of gristle because they're cut once on the big die, not twice ground and not been blended with bread crumb for the fine consistency I so love in my Jimmy Dean.

So there, gauntlet thrown. What's your favorite sausage?

After our own, we go for JD.

Gosh, Jenise. This is like the one about what's your favorite seed or nut. There are so many kinds of sausage! Have you visited Germany???

For breakfast sausage, Pumpkin likes JD and also Jones. But I know he's also a big fan of blood sausage (black pudding, blutwurst, boudin noir, morcilla, you get the picture). I like that, too, but I recall a favorite late morning weisswurst eaten with a friend in Munich: delicately seasoned, finely ground, freshly made, served with warm soft pretzels and sweet mustard. And wheat beer, also local, fresh, low in alcohol.

But this is all totally unfair to loukaniko, the Greek pork sausage seasoned with grated orange rind, or Moroccan merguez, full of lamb, spice and cumin, or a delicate finocchiona from Tuscany.

Hot dogs. The good ones you get from the butcher.

Does mortadella count?

I guess I'm not that much of a sausage person. I haven't had many that I didn't like but I don't seek them out. I rarely eat anything for breakfast more than a Clif bar, so I don't eat breakfast sausage. The sausage I buy most often is loose, mild Italian sausage that I get from the market around the corner. It's not too fatty and works well in all kinds of pasta sauces, macaroni and cheese, etc.

Fresh Pork Sausage

2 lbs. ground pork, 2/3 lean
2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. powdered sage
1 tsp. black pepper
3/4 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

This recipe is from an old book that I have titled “The Joy of Making Your Own”. The original calls for cubed pork, to be mixed with seasonings, ground together and stuffed into casings, however, I simply make patties and cook them up in a skillet. It is the best breakfast sausage I’ve ever had. I’ve also substituted ground turkey, cooking it up in a non-stick pan.

[Jenise]

Fresh Pork Sausage

2 lbs. ground pork, 2/3 lean
2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. powdered sage
1 tsp. black pepper
3/4 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

This recipe is from an old book that I have titled “The Joy of Making Your Own”. The original calls for cubed pork, to be mixed with seasonings, ground together and stuffed into casings, however, I simply make patties and cook them up in a skillet. It is the best breakfast sausage I’ve ever had. I’ve also substituted ground turkey, cooking it up in a non-stick pan.

No offense intended but however delicious the combination, and I know it would be, that's just seasoned pork. Texturally, for me it needs something more to be sausage.

No offense intended but however delicious the combination, and I know it would be, that's just seasoned pork. Texturally, for me it needs something more to be sausage.

Um... Isn't that the definition of pork sausage - ground pork and seasonings? I grind the fresh pork to a medium coarse consistency. Here's Jimmy Dean's Nutritional info. What did I leave out? MSG? Corn syrup? http://www.jimmydean.com/Products/Fresh-Sausage/Premium-Pork-Hot-Sausage

[Jenise]

Sure. But, Howie, what I'm talking about is texture not just flavor. I would bet that Jimmy Dean has some sort of panade in it that allows that fine crumb that I adore. It's probably fairly finely ground, too. Either way, it makes what I love and just adding seasoning to fresh pork doesn't quite get me there.

Here is a link to a recipe in a local website that sells sausage making equipment. The spices and quantity are different than what I posted. Texture is just a question of how it's ground. Finely ground pork, such as that found in the supermarket, would be mushy. I only made the turkey version for my wife, years ago, when she was on Weight-Watchers. http://www.sausagemaker.com/freshbreakfastsausage.aspx

[Jenise]

Here is a link to a recipe in a local website that sells sausage making equipment. The spices and quantity are different than what I posted. Texture is just a question of how it's ground.

Maybe. But bread crumb of some kind is also often added--consider the English banger. I've long presumed that Jimmy Dean adds something to get the texture I so long in their sausage, it's definitely not coarse ground.

Some are good, but most are over-salted and over-seasoned, manly meat-eater sausages that cook up tough and full of gristle because they're cut once on the big die, not twice ground and not been blended with bread crumb for the fine consistency I so love in my Jimmy Dean.

Jenise, if you look at the contents you'll see that there are no bread crumbs in Jimmy Dean sausage. The fine consistency must come from the double grinding process. USDA regulations don't allow a meat product to be called "sausage" if it contains any significant amount of cereal filler. Producers of boudin or Polish kiszka can't call their product "blood sausage". Our local smoked meat outfit, North Country Smokehouse, produces British-isles-style sausages under the name "Irish-style Bangers" but can't put the word "sausage" on the label.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Paul, that's what I'm finding out. I just presumed there was some based on my experience with ground meat textures, and the enhancing effects of both bread crumbs and twice-grinding. I wonder if any at all would be allowed--you use the word 'significant'. It wouldn't have to be much or anything close to what goes into a banger to make a good difference.

I believe the addition of oatmeal to breakfast sausage is called scrapple. Ronald Reagan was a big fan.

[Jenise]

I believe the addition of oatmeal to breakfast sausage is called scrapple. Ronald Reagan was a big fan.

I've actually never had scrapple! But I'd probably like it. Oatmeal makes a wonderful filler in meat loaf--makes lots of lateral micro-layers that have a great mouthfeel. I use it with lamb, red wine, and lots of herbs.

[Robin Garr]

Not to be That Person or anything, but ...

I'm using the Fooducate app to learn what's really in my food.

I just looked up Jimmy Dean Premium Pork Sausage, Regular
It's nutrition grade is C+.

Fooducate grades foods based on their nutrients and ingredients.

http://www.fooducate.com/app#page=produ ... FD45A4D471

Fooducate's issue is the amount of saturated fat. Well, yeah, real sausage has that property, and it's certainly not something that you should eat day in and day out.

Here's what the USDA says about fillers and binders in sausage: "Binders and extenders are permitted in fresh sausages except where regulations do not permit the use of such ingredients, i.e., 9 CFR 319.140 (Pork Sausage), 9 CFR 319.142 (Beef Sausage), 9 CFR 319.144 (Whole Hog Sausage), and 9 CFR 319.145 (Italian Sausage)."

So if you use the words "pork sausage" in product name, you can't have any binders and fillers such as the bread crumbs used in British bangers, or in boudin.

Scrapple is meat scraps cooked with oatmeal. One traditional way to make scrapple is to add the bones or carcass from a roast to the oatmail when you boil it up, then to scrape the meat off the bones into the oatmeal.

-Paul W.

For a period in my crazy life, I ate sausage and eggs every morning. The sausage was the thin parsley, cheese and fennel Itailan kind that can be had only at a good sausage store, probabaly only in New York. God, I still love that sausage, but like Paul says, eating it day in and day out certainly isn't smart, not at my age.

As much as I appreciate and understand your rhapsody, Jenise, any sausage made by a conglomerate scares the daylights out of me, with or without breadcrumbs. Incidentally, when I ate and made my own burgers, I added bread crumbs.

[Jenise]

Thomas, I get everything you say. We rarely eat breakfast meat; fruit is our typical breakfast. An egg maybe once a week for Bob. Doesn't mean we love it any less, though!

[Robin Garr]

Thomas, I get everything you say. We rarely eat breakfast meat; fruit is our typical breakfast. An egg maybe once a week for Bob. Doesn't mean we love it any less, though!

I may just be projecting, but I think Thomas was more concerned - as I would be - about the quality and safety of industrially produced meat, not about pork per se.

Thomas, I get everything you say. We rarely eat breakfast meat; fruit is our typical breakfast. An egg maybe once a week for Bob. Doesn't mean we love it any less, though!

I may just be projecting, but I think Thomas was more concerned - as I would be - about the quality and safety of industrially produced meat, not about pork per se.

Yes, that's what I meant.

We eat small quantities of meat, and what we do eat is produced locally. We don't eat farmed fish, either.

[Jenise]

I may just be projecting, but I think Thomas was more concerned - as I would be - about the quality and safety of industrially produced meat, not about pork per se.

I understood that; my response didn't rule it out. That why I "still love it anyway". Meaning, it still tastes good even if it's not in my best interests to eat it.

Ayuh, Jimmy Dean is my lifelong favorite sausage pattie as well, Jenise. And as you say, one of the few childhood pleasures that has maintained its intensity through adulthood.

I will go so far as to confess that in my first marriage, with a wife that could not cook and had little desire to do so, one of my favorite quickie "one dish casserole meals" was a Corningware dish filled with sliced potatoes, cream corn and Jimmy Dean Sausage Patties and baked in the oven. (That is still one of my favorite secret-secret dishes from long ago. And it is primarily because of the aforesaid JD sausages---as you say, they're the tastiest commercial sausage patties I've ever found.)

...one of my favorite quickie "one dish casserole meals" was a Corningware dish filled with sliced potatoes, cream corn and Jimmy Dean Sausage Patties and baked in the oven.

That sounds good.

Mmmmmmm; Jimmy Dean Brown 'n Serve sausage patties, farm fresh eggs scrambled in butter, and cinnamon raisin toast, with fresh ground coffee run through filter. It doesn't get any better! Yum!