In this installment
Broadbent Breakfast Sausage
Ferry Farms Michigan Bacon
Broadbent Breakfast Sausage
This is one of those foods that went from afterthought to major star…at least at first. Maybe there were too many memories of family car trips and stops at local general stores that clouded our opinions. Growing up in Michigan you see a lot of country sausage. Depending on where you grew up there were good and bad versions of sausage to be found, I’m sure. So maybe you get how a few of us might have had some bad memories to overcome. And then we tasted this sock of a sausage.
It’s made by Ronny and Beth Drennan, from Anna “Grandma” Broadbent’s recipe, who started selling it from the family barn in 1909. They mix a batch of fresh pork, sage and red pepper and stuff it into cloth bags that are cured by air drying for a week or so. No one knows exactly what this step contributes to the final product, but it’s what folks have always done in Trigg County, Kentucky, so they continue today. Before shipping to us, it’s smoked over green hickory for 24 hours.
Kept in the cloth bags, it lasts for a long, long time—there’s no rush to use it up. Ronny eats his sausage for breakfast with eggs and biscuits. Try it in omelettes. It also makes some serious sausage gravy. While this yummy sausage is air cured, it is not actually cooked. To please your palate, warm it, brown it, cook it up and enjoy.
Ferry Farms Michigan Bacon
We’ve sought out great culinary delights from across the great Mitten State from fish to jam to chocolate. Finally, we’ve found a fantastic bacon to add to the Made in Michigan roster.
Ferry Farms is a fourth generation farm in Litchfield, Michigan. Unlike most bacon makers that start by buying commodity pork, the Ferry family sources their pigs through a network of neighboring farms, where they’re raised without any hormones or antibiotics. To make the bacon, after a wet cure in a mix of salt and spices, the pork bellies are smoked over hickory wood.
The result is a little sweet and a little smoky, but not too much of either. It’s the perfect use-for-anything bacon and a great representation of how delicious Michigan meats can be.