Good Brats in Vermont!

I have this love/hate thing with pork. I love ribs, pork roast, sausage, wurst, and chops. And of course, bacon. Bacon, bacon fat, bacon-wrapped everything. I was once flipping through one of my vegetarian cookbooks. I saw a really good recipe and thought to myself, "Hmmm... that's a pretty good recipe. Know what would make it better? Bacon." Next page... "Good recipe. Know what would make this better? Bacon."  Bacon makes everything better.

But, unless you are in the know, it can be hard to find good pork. When I say good pork, I mean meat that does not smell and taste like a hog factory when you cook it. You know the smell: part sewage plant, part rotting animal, part visitation from the seventh circle of hell. I am positive that this flavor/smell comes from the hogs rooting in their own mess. Basically the worst of what PETA has to say about factory-produced (notice I did not say "farmed") pork.

Good pork does not have this narsty smell and flavor. It is very hard to find here in Vermont. Oh, I am sure there is good pork here, but I have yet to find a regular hookup for my fix. One of the most egregious offenders is McKenzie Country Classics. Every pork product I have ever had from them smells and tastes as if it was scraped out of the bottom of the pig pen. So, imagine my double surprise when I found great bratwurst here in Vermont and from the same parent company that owns McKenzie's: Kayem.

The Kayem brats are the best sausage I found in Vermont so far. To do any better without making them myself, I order from the folks at Bavaria Sausage Inc.  It is seriously difficult to do any better than they do it. My friend and I both had two brats with breakfast a couple days ago. Well, there are five brats in a pack. I threw the fifth in the pan on low and forgot about it. It was one crispy sausage by the time I remembered to shut off the stove. I dropped it in a ziploc bag and tossed it in the fridge.

I ate it this morning and it rocked. Still juicy, great flavor, and the casing stood up to the abuse of pan-cooking. It even tasted great without mustard. And best of all, none of that nasty hog factory smell or taste.