Beef Summer Sausage

Short answer: they’re cured, so they’ll last a while!

Long answer: Curing is an ancient process that makes meat safe by keeping it inhospitable to the microbes that would otherwise cause rot. Curing is what differentiates a sausage (uncured) from a salami (cured).

Curing works its magic by eliminating bad bacteria from meat in two ways. First, by drying. Bacteria need moisture to grow and curing deprives them of it, usually with a combination of salt and some environmental measures, like dehumidified aging rooms. Second, by fermentation. Fermentation makes a salami acidic, which kills the bacteria. Not every cured meat is fermented – cured hams aren’t, for example – but they’re all dried. Once the process is complete, cured meat is safe from the bacteria that would spoil it. That means it can be stored at room temperature for a long time, until we’re ready to eat it.

Cured meats like salami, prosciutto, and ‘nduja will last for weeks or even months if stored correctly and unsliced. Slice salami as you eat it – keeping it whole will help prevent it from drying out.

What if it arrives warm?

We don’t necessarily ship cured meats with ice packs. Since it’s cured, it’s healthy and happy at warm temperatures. To prolong its life at home keep it refrigerated. But hours or even days at warmer temperatures won’t harm it a bit.

What’s up with mold on salami?

Downy white mold is as essential to salami flavor as blue mold is for blue cheese. Every good salami has mold on it at some point in its life. It’s a sign the salami is aging well; the mold protects the fat from going rancid. If you’re buying one without mold it was probably washed off at some point. It’s edible, but you can also wash it off with a bit of vinegar and water if you’d like. If a little mold returns in time it’s a good sign.

I grew up in Michigan. We often had summer sausage in the fridge. But mention summer sausage to a friend from California and chances are they’ve never even heard of it. Why is it so ubiquitous in the midwest and so unknown elsewhere in the country?

Summer sausage is in every grocery store in the midwest.

For those who didn’t grow up with summer sausage, here’s a quick overview. Despite the name, it’s more of a salami than a sausage—it’s cured, stable at room temperature, and ready to slice and eat with no cooking. It’s usually about two inches in diameter and about six to eight inches long. The sausage is a deep rosy pink with small white flecks of fat. It almost always comes wrapped in a waxy, maroon casing. It’s a fibrous, papery material that you can’t eat, so you peel it away as you cut off slices. It’s soft—similar to the texture of bologna, but bologna you slice a quarter-inch thick. The flavor is a bit tangy, a bit sweet, a bit spicy.

The name summer sausage comes from the days before refrigeration. After the slaughter in the fall, you’d make the sausage from the leftover bits of meat—often including organs. The sausage would go through two processes that allow it to keep until the next summer, hence the name. First is a lactic acid fermentation—the same process used to ferment foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, and yogurt. The fermentation lowers the pH of the meat, inhibiting microbial activity and allowing it to keep without refrigeration. It also gives the meat a tangy flavor. The second process is curing, which removes some of the moisture in the meat and further inhibits those microbes. By combining the curing with the fermentation, summer sausage doesn’t need to be dried as much as a hard salami to be able to keep at room temperature. Compared to most salami, summer sausage is practically juicy.

The recipe for summer sausage came to the US when German immigrants settled in the midwest in the late 1800s and brought their recipes with them. It’s a common story shared by many midwestern meats—including Usinger’s liverwurst from Milwaukee or Nueske’s applewood smoked bacon from Wittenberg, Wisconsin.

Summer sausage is the ultimate meat to eat with a cracker.

A quarter-inch thick slice fits pretty darn perfectly on a Ritz—and so much the better if you top it off with a nib of cheddar. I know plenty of folks who like to take a few slices of summer sausage and layer them in a sandwich with a good slather of butter or mustard. It’s a great choice to bring along on a hike, to a picnic, or for a camping trip. It’s also standard midwestern fare for a tray of finger foods for a party. If you went to a party hosted by Zingerman’s Mail Order co-founder Mo’s family, you’d find summer sausage included in a spread with deviled eggs, olives, pickles (small dills and bread & butter pickles), celery, carrot slices, ranch dressing, and Club crackers.

Cured for flavor and longevity

Curing is an ancient process that makes meat safe by keeping it inhospitable to the microbes that would otherwise cause rot. Most commonly, this is done by salting, smoking, and drying. When cured slowly and traditionally, these techniques not only make the meat safe to keep, they also make it extra delicious. Salami will last for weeks or even months if stored correctly and unsliced.

We don’t necessarily ship salami with ice packs. Since it’s cured, it’s healthy and happy at warm temperatures. To prolong its life at home keep it refrigerated. But hours or even days at warmer temperatures won’t harm it a bit.

You can’t have a salami without mold

Downy white mold is as essential to salami flavor as blue mold is for blue cheese. Every good salami has mold on it at some point in its life. It’s a sign the salami is aging well; the mold protects the fat from going rancid. If you’re buying one without mold it was probably washed off at some point. It’s edible, but you can also wash it off with a bit of vinegar and water if you’d like. If a little mold returns in time it’s a good sign.

Sliced to order

A whole salami keeps its integrity. It stays moist and sweet. As soon as you slice a bit off the air starts to change the flavor. We ship all of our salamis whole so the flavor stays intact. Slicing them is easy. Don’t worry about slicing thin pieces. Many salami lovers think a little thicker is better.

Don’t be mislead by visible fat

Just because you see more fat in one salami than another doesn’t mean it has a higher fat content. It often means it was ground a little more coarsely. Most good salamis are about 1/3 fat, give or take.

Smaller is bigger

Smaller salamis usually have more intense flavors. In a similar way to wine, where petite grapes have a higher skin to fruit ratio and therefore more tannins, small salamis have more rind to meat ratio, therefore the rind molds have a greater effect on flavor. Smaller salamis also expel moisture faster which intensifies their flavor.

Use your senses

A good salami has a short ingredient list with no corn syrup. It is glowing pink on the inside, but not too red (in which case it might be artificially colored). It has a sweet, porky smell with clean flavors and no chemically, powdered garlic aftertaste or sourness which is a telltale sign of a bad cure.

Like with most traditional foods, if you serve salami at room temperature you’ll get a lot more flavor than if it’s eaten cold, just out of the refrigerator.