Summer sausage sandwiches

Summer Sausage

by Mark Fitzgerald

Summer Sausage with
Fresh Cheese and Cucumber 

"Monday, June 30, 1856. Weather: beautiful. 10 o'clock provisions were issued for two days: flour, sugar, dried apples, coffee, tea, salt, and smoked pork. It was made known to the handcart company that no person could convey more than 17 pounds per person with them on the carts."

For an afternoon lunch try something different.   Put together slices of summer sausage along side some fresh cheese and slices of sourdough artisan bread.

A summer sausage refers to any sausage that can be kept without being refrigerated.  Today's summer sausage is normally beef.  In pioneer times it would have likely been pork.  Both would have used saltpeter (potassium nitrate) to cure the meat.  Either way it makes for a tasty treat and would have kept along the trail for the long pioneer trek across the plains.

I haven't made summer sausage.  It looks ambitious and I do not yet have all of the right tools, such as casings.  A good guide if you are looking to do it on your own can be found at  http://butchersupply.net/blog/2009/11/01/making-summer-sausage-step-by-step/

Ingredients

2 lbs summer sausage cut into 64 1/2 ounce slices

Information

Makes 10 3 ounce servings (6 slices)
270 calories per serving

Make sure to see how this recipe fits into the entire menu we have cooked up for LDS Pioneer Handcart Trek recreations.