Liverwurst Redux - The Fellowship of the Sausage.

 

  The Quest For Liverwurst.

On July 4, 2024, I enjoyed my annual Boar’s Head Liverwurst Hero Sandwich Extravaganza. Quarter of a pound of liverwurst, hot mustard, pickles and an orange soda were the condiment, side and beverage. This is a decades old ritual. Liverwurst just this once a year. As always, just like I noted in the Pulitzer Prize nominated essay, Liverwurst, it was delicious. 

Then, tragedy struck when on September 13, 2024, Boar's Head announced their decision to "permanently discontinue" the deli meat.  This was months after the discovery of an ongoing listeria outbreak was which was linked to a "specific production process" that caused 57 hospitalizations across 18 states, including nine deaths as of late August.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was made aware of the deadly outbreak on July 19 and issued a recall for 207,528 pounds of Boar's Head liverwurst seven days later.  That’s a lot of sandwiches. The "root cause" of the contamination, according to Boar's Head, was a "a specific production process that only existed at the Jarratt facility in Virginia and was used only for liverwurst." Conditions at the plant were too disgusting to list in a family focused essay. “This is a dark moment in our company’s history,” Boar’s Head said. 

This was a darker moment in John Cafarella history since the Boar’s Head liverwurst hero sandwich with mustard, sour dill kosher pickles and orange soda was an annual July 4 event. I had just had mine two weeks earlier while Listeria was rampant. What would I do for the next 4^th of July? 

Many people to whom I have describe the yearly liverwurst ritual feast have asked, “what is liverwurst?”  Well, liverwurst is a traditional meat-based sausage that is otherwise known as ‘liver sausage.’ However, meat is not the only ingredient, and the German sausage contains a variety of ingredients. While it originated in Germany, it can also be found in Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and many other European regions. Liverwurst is also very popular also in some regions of South America like Chile and Argentina, but the flavor profiles of these differ vastly. Each of these countries have their own version of liverwurst, but the main structure remains the same. Liverwurst consists of four main components: meat, animal fat, liver, and spices. Beef and pork are the main two types of meat used to make liverwurst. The ingredients are usually pork, allspice, coriander, marjoram, mustard seed, nutmeg, thyme, and white pepper.

Liverwurst contains almost 15 grams of protein per 100g. It is extremely high In Vitamin B12 (and Other B Vitamins) as well as a significant source of Retinol (Vitamin A). It is loaded with Iron and Selenium. On the other hand it is very very extremely high In sodium as it contains humongous amounts of salt, around 42% of the recommended daily  intake for sodium……It is also high in fat and cholesterol…….But if you only eat it once a year……….   Now it was gone. All gone. Gone gone gone. Peanut butter and jelly would be a poor substitute as would a tomato sandwich.  I would have joined a liverwurst loss support group but alas there aren’t any.  I thought of starting one but the only other person I know who likes liverwurst is my sister, Mary and she lives in California.  So, the sudden apocalyptic demise of Boar’s Head liverwurst set me on an immediate Quest for replacement liverwurst for future Fourths of July.  It wasn’t easy.  Thank goodness Margaret joined in the Quest even though she is not a liverwurst fan. She would turn out to be the heroine of this story. We were now the Fellowship of the Sausage.  

We would encounter many strange lands and beings on our Lord of the Rings like Quest. The first stop was a Kroger’s in Kettering Ohio where our son, Brian his wife, Lisa, and our grandson, Gavin live. After weaving our way past multiple circuitous paths through and around the Fruit and Veggies Islands featuring blueberries, bananas, and some green things with black spots, we arrived at a clearing with the cold cuts counter in the distance.  We were briefly distracted by the Valley of Cheese section and the variety of cheddars. We tore ourselves away from the Cracker Clearing and breathlessly arrived at the Cold Cuts Peninsula.  A smiling woman magically appeared behind the counter.  Margaret, thinking I was safe, had gone back to the crackers. Preferencing my humble request by noting that I was aware of the Boar’s Head Disaster.  I asked this mysterious woman if they had any liverwurst.  With a look of terror on her face, she bellowed “No!” and then “they may have it at the meat counter” as she ran into a back room and disappeared, leaving me gaping at variety of smoked turkey and a baloney-like meat product with olives in it.  Clearly, this Quest would not be a simple one. Our Fellowship of the Sausage set off for the meat counter.  We were delayed and tempted by the aromas and selection of breads at the Baked Goods Alley but tore ourselves away.  Unfortunately, we got lost in the Cereal Maze. This took a while to escape as we learned that there are at least 20 different kinds of Cheerios. Then, on the other side of the Flavored Water Forest, was the meat counter, Cholesterol Central Station.  Yards and yards of meats.  We searched the sliced cold meats to no avail.  We inquired at the counter and the butcher laughed heartily at our liverwurst request as he waved a cleaver at us.  Chastened, we retreated as clearly, the meat section was a liverwurst free zone. 

 

Disappointed but not discouraged, Margaret suggested continuing our Quest at Mama DiSalvo’s Italian Deli which might have our elusive German sausage. Our Quest was becoming more and more similar to the Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring except instead of the Mountains of Moria, we were searching for Liverwurst Land. While there were no Orcs, Ringwraiths, or Sauron or Dragons, there were red lights with the driver next to us sharing Hip Hop, at an ear-splitting volume with the world, construction lane closings featuring flaggers confused by their own “Slow” and “Stop” sign and just held it sideways, and kamikaze left turn makers. It was also 95 degrees. We finally arrived at Mama DiSalvo’s Italian Deli. Again, as at Kroger, there were many obstacles filled with temptation to be navigated.  There was Frozen Pasta Estates featuring, gnocchi, cheese torellini, and my favorite, meat ravioli. We took a meat ravioli.  Moving on we arrived at Mama DiSalvo’s Home Made Pasta Sauce Acres. We almost didn’t make it past the pasta sauce  Margaret was captured by spell woven by a woman sitting at a table (they serve lunch there) who described the wonders of a pasta and vodka sauce and how they had it for dinner and “it’s right there on the second shelf”, and Margaret nodded and was polite but our quest had come to a halt. We suspect she was the mythical Vizier of Vodka in disguise.  Her mission was to distract Liverwurst seekers.  Finally, Margaret broke the spell by selecting a Fra Diablo sauce as she nodded and nodded and smiled and nodded and backed away. The woman realized her lunch was getting cold, and her husband was beginning to snore and returned to her lunch. If you are ever bewitched by the Vizier of Vodka pasta sauce, grab a jar of Fra Diablo pasta sauce and the spell will be broken. There was more to come though as we still had to get past the Italian Candy Land.  Margaret loves the candy.  She always gets two boxes, “one for me and one for Lisa” and then keeps both boxes. Finally, arms full with candy and ravioli and pasta sauce appearing before us was the …..Realm of the Counter where reigned,  The Lady of the Deli. After waiting to be acknowledged, I respectfully submitted my request. “Do you have any liverwurst?”  She gently smiled, no, they didn’t have it. But that wasn’t all, Being The Lady of the Deli and thus having magical powers (she also knows how to operate the espresso machine) and mystical knowledge, she then launched into a discourse about how buying is down during election years. “People are not spending money”, she informed.  It happens every election year. Presumably this included liverwurst. She then expanded to explain that most cold cuts are regional and regional cold cuts included Thuman’s brand which distributes to “the east coast”, which I presume includes Ohio.  No, they didn’t have any Thuman’s liverwurst, probably because it was an election year.  But we should keep checking. So, on every trip to Ohio, we should now visit Mama DiSalvo’s Italian Deli, wend our way past the pasta, pasta sauce and Italian candy, and ask The Lady of the Deli if she has Thuman’s liverwurst. We promised to return, and she made me an espresso. 

Liverwurstless, we continued our Ohio visit. During the (very) brief respites between chasing and racing and playing games with our grandson, Gavin, I looked up liverwurst brands on the search engine, Duck Duck Goose. I thought that since pâté, is made of goose liver, the Goose part of Duck Duck Goose would be helpful. I discovered, while using mystical passwords, that there are several liverwurst alternative brands but once again the Quest got confusing.   Many sites use Braunschweiger and Liverwurst interchangeably. Braunschweiger? What was Braunschweiger? Could it be yet another detour in our Quest for the Land of Liverwurst laid down by the Saurons of Sausage?  A subsequent trip to another local supermarket, the Dorothy Lane Market led us to the sliced meat cooler where we discovered Braunschweiger as we were looking for Liverwurst. Which was Braunschweiger and which was liverwurst? We thought we had been led astray but Braunschweiger is another sausage that originated in Brunswick, Germany. Egad! The main difference between Braunschweiger and liverwurst is that liverwurst is a more generic term for any liver sausage, while Braunschweiger is smoked. Afraid to make a decision, we returned to Brian’s house and resumed the exhausting practice of keeping up with a six-year-old.  The liverwurst quest would be postponed until next summer when thoughts would once again turn to the 4^th of July.  I saved all the liverwurst research in a Liverwurst Quest Folder on our computer desktop.

                  The drive home from Kettering to Canadensis is a long one, 9 hrs.  Little did we know that we would resume The Quest.  It was Margaret who would succeed. We always stop at a Weis’ Supermarket close to home at the conclusion of our trip.  Margaret goes in and gets the necessities, bread, orange juice, and milk.  I wait in the car.  I am not allowed in as I am easily distracted by non-necessities such as chocolates, pretzels, and unsalted peanuts. Shopping complete, Margaret returned to the car. We got home. We unpacked. Smiling, Margaret revealed that evidently under a mysterious Sausage Spell, she was led to the sliced meat section and there was…………..Jones Braunshweiger Liverwurst Sliced. What could be bad? It was Braunschweiger and it was Liverwurst! It was very exciting. This was a Sunday.  Somehow, I resisted trying my Jones Braunshweiger Liverwurst Sliced until Tuesday.  The spirit of the Lady of the Deli must have had an effect in some way.  Clearly, I was not going to wait until the 4^th of July. Tuesday arrived. My dinner would be Jones Braunshweiger Liverwurst Sliced but on a Kaiser roll, not a lengthy hero roll. No orange soda but I did have Pocono Pickle Guy pickles and hot mustard.  It was sublime! Wonderful! Delicious. Thanks to Margaret, the Quest for the Sausage was over. It ended in triumph.  Fellowship of the Ring Director, Peter Jackson could now make our adventure into his usual three movie Trilogy.

 

 

Meet the Author Day at the Local Library

 

 

 

Author:  the writer of a literary work (such as a book)

: one that originates or creates something…………………Definition - Miriam Webster Dictionary

 

While composing this essay, I found it difficult to read my notes because of the water but more on that later. 

 

In early April I accepted an invitation to participate in a “Local Author Meet and Greet” at our area library on May 20.  Author? Moi?  Well, I guess I am an author, but it sounds strange.

I filled out some forms, submitted them via email and that was it. On May 19 I received a call from Mary Ann, the  librarian, asking me to arrive between 12 and 12:45. I arrived at 12:10 for the 1p.m. to 4 p.m. session.  Much to my disappointment, there were no tents outside the library for people who had camped all night to be first in and get a signed copy of my book, nor were there any lines of people extending into the parking lot.  There were no lines and all.  In fact, there were no people. The parking lots were empty but for three cars: the librarian’s, mine and one other. I knew there would be more cars because there would be six authors.  Yes, the joy of six. 

 

Earlier that morning I felt a minor itch on my face. Absentmindedly, I scratched it. Post scratch I thought, “oy vey, could it be a mosquito bite?”  It wasn’t a mosquito bite.  It was two mosquito bites.  Big ones. They were right next to each other on my chin so from a distance, say one foot or so, they looked like one enormous zit.  I looked and felt like a 16-year-old on the morning of the Junior Prom, only now I had to go face the public with an itchy face.  

 

First thing to do was set up my table display. Each six ft long table had three chairs, one for the local author and two on the opposite side for the visitors.  I’m sure had people known that there were only two chairs per table there would have been those lines outside waiting to get in.  It could have looked like Walmart opening the doors on Black Friday.  I had brought  six copies of The Man With Three Arms and Other Stories, single copies of the March, April, May, and June Gnus Almanacs (with each running to 700 plus pages, they are a bit heavy), 10 copies each of the essays, “Scientists Review the Gnus Almanacs” and “Praise for The Man With Three Arms”….., 10 single pages of my website and blog site ( 72 font), for people to take with them, my laptop and a bag of corks . This being my first Meet the Author day, without being too obvious I cast surreptitious glances at the tables of the other authors for hints on how to set up my table for the optimum visitor experience. Some had books stands, there was one with a cardboard box, and everyone had multiple copies of their books. 

 

The laptop was set for my blog, Bloggish Blether, so visitors could see a sample of my recent essay, Ghost Writers in the Sky, which examines the phenomenon of dead authors continuing to produce books after becoming deceased. Unfortunately, I forgot to change the sleep time on the laptop and after every 10 minutes it went into screen saver mode and people would see my screen saver picture of the liverwurst hero sandwich I had last summer.  It is a view of an open sandwich with the Boars Head liverwurst on one side and my artistic splashes of Gray Poupon mustard on the other side.  There are two spears of Boars Head kosher dill pickles next to the sandwich and a bottle of orange soda, because orange soda should be paired with liverwurst to complete the culinary and photographic masterpiece.   Since the laptop was facing outwards towards the audience and I was behind it, I was unaware of liverwurst display screen saving mode activation until about 30 minutes into the session.  A gentleman asked me the meaning of the picture on my laptop. Whoops!  I had to get up and walk around to the front of the table put in my password and log myself in again.  Rinse and repeat several times as I kept neglecting to keep the screen active until I just shut the thing off and put the laptop away. I was the only one with a laptop anyway, probably the only one who likes liverwurst.  Suffice to say, the laptop failed to enhance the table browsing experience. The “review” essays were up front in the middle of the table and the corks were on the left.   Why corks? You may ask. This former science teacher trainer always brought an “interactive activity” to every presentation, and I thought this would make for an interesting experience for visitors.  The cork drop activity is based on Archimedes’ center of gravity principle.  One holds the cork horizontally above a flat surface and drops it.  The object is to have the cork land on an end. I provided a demonstration sheet taped to the table with Margaret’s hand showing the position of the cork pre drop. That took up a bit of space and so the table was crowded with materials even without the laptop. 

The other authors included the head of the local historical society who has written historical novels based on “real life incidents”, a gentleman promoting his book  of “dark, violent teenage angst” (he was the one with the cardboard box of books), a husband and wife with their books Birds of Pennsylvania and Birds of Vermont,  the co-author of Real Time Parenting, a guide to parenting,  and a popular local author, but I never got a closeup look at her display. The “dark violent “guy was an unabashed salesman, giving out books on said teenage girl angst advising that they were “dark and violent”. He repeated it quite a few times. Evidently, he needed some number of reviews in Amazon to achieve some algorithm that was unclear, but we were advised that all his reviews were 4 and 5 star so we presume there is an audience for “dark and violent” teenage girl angst. We all got a book.  I put mine in my box behind the table. The bird people had a large fold out pop-up bird book with bird calls as their centerpiece.  It was a jungle motif although I’m not sure how that fit in with Birds of Pennsylvania and Vermont. We were treated to a cacophony of chirps, chips, buzzes, tweets and caws while I looked around for Tarzan and Cheetah to arrive. Mercifully, while keeping the book open, they turned off the hooting and screeching. 

 

If you’ve ever seen a job fair, there was a resemblance to a job fair.  We all sat behind our tables and visitors sat on chairs (two were provided) in the front of the table facing us as if we were conducting interviews. Turnout was, shall we say, underwhelming.  25 people over three hours. By 2:00 I was bored. My notes say, “please make it end”. I eventually I realized that everyone, including me, had the same spiel when a new person came to the table, so I heard, “based on a real life duel”, “there are several kinds of hummingbirds”, “dark and violent”, and “see the child in front of you” quite a few times.  Just like the other authors heard “hold the cork like this…..” fairly often. 

 

The Cork Challenge was a bit of a success. The corks were attention grabbers.   Everyone who visited my display was instructed to give it a try. I would hold up the bag of corks and say “we went out to dinner last night and got these”.  This got me some strange looks. I also gave everyone a free hint for success.  Our friend Karen came by.  After a dozen or so tries and fails, she accused me of having defective corks, bid farewell for the time being and went to visit other authors before returning, determined to succeed.  Success!  The prize for dropping the cork correctly was that you get to keep the cork. Some people did but Karen said she already had plenty of corks at home and turned down the fabulous prize. Mary Ann, the librarian had a few tries before we opened to the public but, alas, failed.  She came back about an hour later, sat down, and said, “I’m going to get this” and so she did although she also turned down the prized of a free cork. 

 

You may recall the list of items I had carefully and thoughtfully placed on display.  There was also a glass of water which had been added during one of my moments of boredom.  Note that it was during another of those moments that I decided to turn the experience into an essay. I got to get up, walk across the room, fill the glass at the refreshment table and then walk back. Yes, it was that tedious at times. 

 

During one break between visitors, I visited the author at the next table.  She had co-written a book on parenting. We discussed parenting and, in my case, grandparenting.  It was quite interesting, and she gave me a copy of her book which can be a very effective tool for parents and I’ll give it to my son and daughter in law for grandson advice.  I gave her a copy of The Man With Three Arms……. and went back to my table, straightened out some handouts and knocked over my full glass of water.  There was a lot of water.  There was a lot of table for it to cover and it was doing its best.  Embarrassing? Yes, but apparently no one had noticed so I pretended it never happened.  However, it did happen and like the rising waters of a river flooding over its banks after a heavy rain, the liquid slowly oozed across the table from left (my “review handouts”), past my notes, below my book samples, thank goodness and inexorably towards my computer at the other end.  I was doing well at pretending nothing happened, I think, and nonchalantly, but quickly crossed the room and grabbed 2 handfuls of napkins from the refreshment table – cookies, bags of popcorn, and apple juice - and brought them back for H2O containment.  I was surprised had how much water was lapping against one of my folders and how many napkins it took to restore order. It required a second nonchalant trip across the room. The laptop and books were saved but I evidently missed a couple of spots and so when our friend Jan arrived shortly afterwards, she showed me a copy of an article I had written for this month’s Village View, “Decoration Day = Memorial Day.” I announced I would sign it and placed it on the table………….in one of the remaining puddles.  She quickly, but not quickly enough, grabbed the now sodden paper exclaiming “look, the ink is running”.  “Just like the water”, I thought.  I apologized profusely and told her I would get another copy of the article since I knew the author. By now page one of my pages of notes to write this essay was also a victim of the flood and one large mushy blur as were several website pages.

 

There are three rules for writing the book. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” W. Somerset Maugham……………

 

My handouts included “Reviews of “Man………” by such notables as Homer, Shakespeare, Dickenson and Hemingway among others. Hemingway said “it’s better than dying…….alone in the rain”.  There were also copies of Scientists Review The Gnus   which included such notables as Galileo, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and several others including Hemingway, even though he wasn’t a scientist, just because I like the rain quote. Everyone who came to the table got a copy.  I gave one to a friend who purchased my book a few months ago.  She perused the “Reviews” sheets but clearly not carefully and said, “where’s my name?” among the reviewers.  It wasn’t on the list of reviewers. Another friend asked her to read more vigilantly, and she was no longer concerned when she read the complete list again.  She kept her copy.

Our friends, Jerry and Marie, Bill and Kelley, and Jan and Rich came and went. I thanked them all for coming down the mountain into town. All had been to lunch first, so I wasn’t the top priority of their afternoon.  Jerry said he and Marie had been at First Place diner for lunch and he had a Cuban sandwich. I wondered if the Cuban objected. After this they were going to the local garden center “to get dirt” according to Jerry.  Thinking of priorities, I thanked him for placing me below the Cuban sandwich and above the dirt in their afternoon schedule.

 

It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.”—Jack Kerouac,

 

Karen, thrilled with her cork drop success, purchased a book for her friend which I, of course, inscribed which was when I learned that my Sharpie was medium point, not fine point so the inscription looked a bit thick and blurry.  I had brought the Sharpie because I had read somewhere that authors use Sharpies to sign their books.  This may or may not be true but don’t use a medium point if you do. I signed a the newest edition of Man…….for Kelley who had been the first to purchase the first edition of The Man ………. My inscription read, “This One is Better. “.  I sold and signed a book to visitors Dave and Candi.  I spelled Candy with a y and she was shaking her head as I looked up and said, “you got it wrong, it should be an i”.  I apologized. She said it was “O.K”.  I said, “no it isn’t” and crossed out the y at the end of her name, wrote “I” and then penned “it should have been an i” and signed my name. 

Several visitors asked where Margaret was.  As I left home, she had informed me that she could spend the afternoon cooking – she prepares delicious meals that we can eat over a period of weeks - or come down to visit me. This was her subtle way of telling me she wasn’t coming. 

The choice was easy.

By 3:30 it was just five of us authors, the “dark, violent” guy had left around 2:30, and so we were enjoying exchanging anecdotes and ISBN number stories. The local Fire Department was having a fund-raising Chicken BBQ that afternoon and we began to wonder if perhaps our low turnout could be attributed to people preferring BBQ chicken to books.  Then we wondered if there would be anymore chicken left when we were done at 4:00.  I tried to reassure everyone that they had an ample supply of gerbils if they ran out of chicken.  I got some strange looks and they were not reassured.  Just when we thought “that’s it” for the session, the head, Chair? President? Grand Poobah? Of the Library board showed up and so we all had to repeat our spiels ……..“based on a real life duel”, “there are several kinds of hummingbirds”, “dark and violent”, and “see the child in front of you” one more time even though she was not going to purchase anything.  I was 2^nd to last as she worked her way around the room counterclockwise, and she probably wanted to get to the Chicken BBQ before they broke out the gerbils. She stood there nodding at my “daily events over the last 2,000 years or so”. She was interested in the corks, however.  Everyone was interested in the corks. While she was busy with a halfhearted try at the cork, I noticed a few soggy napkins on the table which disintegrated when I tried to pick them up and landed on Scientists Review the Gnus. No one noticed. As it was now time to pack up and leave, I used them to wipe off the table when my books were back in the carrying box.  

 

All my handouts were handed out, other than the victims of the water glass deluge.  I still had almost all the corks although one woman took three.  Sitting around for three hours or so can be wearing and so at 4:00, tired but relieved that it was over, all of us authors said how nice it was to meet each other and then said our goodbyes. I drove home and completely forgot to go to the Chicken BBQ. I understand they did well.

 

Reading your stories is like talking to you……………..reader to John Cafarella.