Wine & Spirits - August 2020 - 64

mom, who was active in the association while my brothers
and I were in high school. She had to contact some old PTA
friends, but she found the brand: Salmon's Meat Products.
"Meat products" means a very different thing in today's
Beyond Burger era, but Salmon's is a family business with
roots back to the early 1900s, and its name dates to the 1950s,
when brand names stated what they sold. Located in Luxembourg, Wisconsin, the Salmon family sells a variety of sausages reflecting the state's mix of European heritages: kielbasa, braunschweiger, Italian sausage, mettwurst, Belgian
tripp and-of course-plenty of bratwurst. Salmon's also
sells "meat sticks," a sort of Ur-Slim Jim. Everybody on the
street I grew up on called them "hot sticks" whenever somebody made the run to Konop's, another old smokehouse
that didn't even distribute to grocery stores. The neighbors
would take turns, tallying orders from each house on the
street before making the 20-mile trek. I never found them
particularly spicy, but I could not dispute their stick-ness.

had a very American upbringing in regard to food. We
always ate together, but I wasn't expected to help out
beyond tossing a salad or setting the table. There was no
flour-dusted nonna yelling at me if I tried to sneak out
of the kitchen without rolling the pasta; no red-handed
babushka wordlessly placing a vegetable peeler and a bag
of beets in front of me and my computer. For whatever
reason, after I moved to New York and fell backwards
into the restaurant industry, it was easier to remember
the misses-the boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (with
a Kraft American single melted in for extra cheesiness) or the
"octo-dogs" (frankfurters with the ends snipped into quarters so they curled like tentacles)-instead of the hits, like
the Friday fish fries (they weren't only for Catholics!), or the
concession-stand hot dogs. New York, in contrast, was serving up only the hits (my first real meal after I arrived was
Misoya ramen; it didn't look much like the Maruchan packets I knew from home).
There's a notion I've happily adopted that everything
good comes to the rest of the US through New York. LookStory by COREY WARREN
ing into my breadbasket of memories of the plains of
Illustration by SAM ISLAND
Wisconsin, I fell in with the idea that good culture progresses on a linear track and that I'd hit the Candy Slide
and jumped forward to the promised land, where people
ine tasting" might call up images of tight-collared suits and
rich old men swirling, spitting and saying things like "succu- argued about the best halal carts, the best slice or the best
red-sauce joint (all while they're "walkin' heah!").
lent, dark purple berries," or "This will be beautiful in fifteen
To be sure, there is a diversity and a wealth of options in
years." For us, it usually means working sommeliers, scared
out of their beds at an unfamiliar hour (before noon!), seated
New York City that doesn't exist in Wisconsin. I had bought
around our tasting table, where they might groggily (but
into the idea that the Midwest was the land of casseroles
accurately) say things like "This smells like hot-dog water."
and cheesy broccoli, and New York had advanced to a buzzOn a recent panel, the second wine to get pinned with that
word-laden locavore cuisine.
It's not that simple, though.
tasting note smelled like very different hot-dog water than
Growing up, I wasn't always eating locally but I did eat
the first. It smelled exactly like the hot dogs that were sold
locally a lot: concession-stand hot dogs, a Kroll's butter
at the concession stands for my high school's sporting events. They are the best
burger, Zesty's frozen custard, venison jerky. Local food
dogs I've ever had-the quintessential sausage. Snappy casing, the right balance
traditions survived in little pockets even as everything else
of smoke, probably a good hit of nitrates given the pink-tinged burgundy color. A
started to come pre-packaged.
healthy slather of yellow mustard, some diced white onion on top and you're ready
to heckle some kids from the private school (if they let us; at one point, we were
As for Salmon's, they may not have hired a copywriter yet
told we couldn't chant "airball" to the opposing team). I hadn't had one in at least
("Salmon's Meat Products will process your venison"), but
eight years, but the memory was immediately brought back by a taste of chardonnay. they hold to a tradition. And they gave me the best hot dogs
Our panel didn't recommend the wine, but now I wanted a hot dog, and the dirty- I've ever had, $1.50 a pop, pulled out of a hotel pan of hot
water dogs of the streets in New York City wouldn't cut it. I needed some full-on
water and placed unceremoniously in a white-bread bun.
Wisconsin-style meat smokery. The PTA ran the concessions stands, so I called my
Hold the chardonnay. I'll take a Salmon's, please. n

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WINE & SPIRITS

AUGUST 2020

Wine & Spirits - August 2020

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