The future of liverwurst?

[Conan The Librarian]

Liverwurst is one of my comfort foods. I have some every couple of years, but generally avoid it because it's not exactly health food. It's getting harder to find. Do you think it'll last another generation? Bigger question relates to the near disappearance of really good delis. I'm not sure why they have largely disappeared, but one thing may be health conciousness. Sandwich meats from super markets are still plenty popular, but without the variety there used to be. Impossible to find head cheese, for example. But there are lots of variations of the same thing, like turkey breast or ham.
 
I remember when the delicatessen was a pro. You could make a career out of it. Today they are just retail clerks that wouldn't know a cappicola from a provolone.
 
Full disclosure: I keep a can of "emergency" sauerkraut in the pantry at all times for when I get a craving for it, about once a year.

[spruce]

Deli's may soon be nearly extinct.  There are new government regulations pending (not sure when they go into effect) that would require all deli's to label each offering with nutritional information just like pre-packaged products now have.
 
It would require each item be sent to a (government approved, of course!) lab to be analyzed - at the expense of the deli.  Essentially, this would be cost-prohibitive to the majority of deli's.  The few who would stay in business would probably have a much more limited selection and higher prices.
 
Welcome to Obamacare - healthier living for everyone.  Only the government knows what you should eat!

[Dixie Dude]

I like fried okra and fried chicken livers.  Sometimes hard to find those.  I remember lots of variety in the lunch meat area also.  Pickled loaf, souse meat, etc.  I used to see liverworst around here, but haven't in years.  I also like liver and onions.  All that stuff is supposed to be bad for you.  People once had to eat what they had to survive.  Lots of blacks in the south like chitlins (hog intestines, cleaned, washed, cut up into bite sized pieces and cooked).  You can still find them and they are cheap, but only tried them once, like eating a wad of fat. 

[BBF]

In the little town nearby I can get two types of "Leberwurst" from a big store and another homemade from a meat market. I eat that Wurst regularly.
 
Bicks makes a great Sauerkraut.

[Oldshooter]

Liverwurst is one of my comfort foods.

Ha! Funny, used to be one of mine, that and liver and onions, and chicken liver and fried gizzards. 
 
Now its a good steak once in awhile, mostly wild game when i dont have to eat chicken breast.     Thats like holding a funnel to your mouth and running into the wind. 

[mannyrock]

  Liverwurst stinks to high heaven and tastes like rotten blood.  Good riddence.
 
   Came from a time when people were so poor that they had to eat every conceivable piece of an animal.  Kidney pie anyone?   Blood pudding anyone?  Chittlins anyone?
 
    I have a simple rule.  I never eat organs, glands or fungus.  Period.  This takes care of most of the totally disgusting things that people will try to serve you, including mountain oysters,  mushrooms, "sweet meats" and liver.
 
   Best, Mannyrock

[Empty Quiver]

I believe turkey has taken the place of liverwurst as a source of cheap lunch meat.


Those everything but the squeal cuts have been replaced by poultry. Like many other foods that were make do with what you have items, they are slowly being replaced. Barrels of salted cod? Ludefisk anyone? Turnips, rudebegas, parsnips, etc., all of that ilk is cheap abundant, fill for thin belly's. if it was really that great it would still be a staple.


Refrigeration has replaced many preservative based meats and deli items. Most deli meats existed solely for lack of refrigerated lunches IMNSHO. Why else would you choose a salami over roast beef or turkey or chicken salad? Because the later would have you doubled over in the head every few weeks, that's why.


Yes I do miss some of the strange stuff mom brought home for sandwiches. The squeeze tubes of sandwich spread was the world really better because of that crap? It seems as though the lunch meat display was twenty feet wide with dozens of choices though. Now days its turkey three ways ham three ways a bologna selection two different salami's, and maybe olive loaf. I want my old fashion loaf, with extra hard bits of unknown origin.

[Bob Riebe]

I do not like liver of any sort.
My parents ate Braunschweiger which to me is as close as one can get to buying poop in a package.

Beyond that I ate and miss many one could simply go to a grocery store and get.
I remember well when smoke sausages would be hanging from attached ropes in the grocery store aisle.

Now one has to drive from fifty to over one hundred miles to get any not in a plastic package.

One of the best ones was in Colby, Wisc..
It was in a old building with a wooden floor and the building looked as old inside as  outside but when you walked in it smelled like an old fashioned butcher shop.
The smell of smoked sausage made your mouth water.
It burned down. They moved about ten-twenty miles away on a major highway and the new building is just another of those disgusting metal things that look like crap.
They used to have a hard, hard smoked sausage that was hanging by the counter. You could use it as a weapon if need be.
Well in the new building they just do not think it is worth the effort anymore.
We used to drive over a hundred miles just for those hard, hard sausages.

Now some times I will buy one of the common supposedly smoked  sausages in a plastic package, unwrap it and put it on a thick layer of paper towels in the kitchen window for a few weeks up to about a month.
Makes it taste better but still not like the old days. 

[DDZ]

I do not like liver of any sort.
My parents ate Braunschweiger which to me is as close as one can get to buying poop in a package.

Hey I used to eat braunschweiger,  and kind of liked it. Not plain, but on a samich with a good hot onion sliced and stone ground mustard. Haven't had none though for 10 years, or more. Now something I think that tastes like crap, is blood pudding. Although I know people that like it.   

[Conan The Librarian]

The key to liverwurst is that it's a texture more than a flavor. A properly constructed liverwurst sang-witch is made with deli rye bread, brown mustard, mayonnaise, and onions. That's where the flavor comes from.
 
 

[Cheesehead]

Home made Sauerkraut, just give me a fork and the quart jar and stand back. So flavorful it makes me shudder.

Cheese

[DDZ]

I hear ya, but probably don't have any friends near you the next day.

[Oldshooter]

Naw but he walks around asking little kids to pull his finger!

[DDZ]

Naw but he walks around asking little kids to pull his finger!

  Thats funny right there!  Still chuckling....thanks!

[KIMBER45]

Home made Sauerkraut, just give me a fork and the quart jar and stand back. So flavorful it makes me shudder.

Cheese

After eating a quart of sauerkraut , we will all have to stand back. WAY BACK!!

[KIMBER45]

I hate the taste of liver  in any form. I belong to a German Club and they serve liverworst after their monthly meetings. I always pass. Wild geese have a liver flavor to me. The only way I can eat wild goose is to have a local Amish man turn it into smoked , spicy sticks - kinda like slim jims. Goes great with a cold beer.

[m-g Willy]

Gooseliver, buttermilk, sardines, pickled pigsfeet ,heart, beef liver all look like they are on the last generation of those who eat them.
I eat all these and out of 6 of my kids only three of them will eat liver and 2 will eat sardines.
But they or the others will not touch any of the other good stuff(since they moved out)
 

[cudatruck]

We prepare and eat everything mentioned here so far except blood pudding. (only because i don't know how to make) my kids are not fond of sauekraut.. but all the rest goes pretty good. i make a simple dish of parsnips, turnips and carrots just boiled and mashed up coarsley sprinkle on some nutmeg kids love it. We fix beef tongue, liver, heart chicken liver and gizzards, mexican menudo (tripe) brains stomach and even pigs feet. Oh and don't forget all the greens from the root veggies! beet tops turnip greens collard greens mustard greens all great!

[Buckskin]

My son had a late baseball game tonight so I missed dinner as I had to go right from work to the game.  I sat down to browse graybeard with one of my favorite sandwiches, a braunschweiger and onion.  Mmmm so darn good I would put it right up there with a fine ribeye... Also one of my favorites is blood sausage of the german variety, pared with oatmeal sausage and a beer it's hard to beat....  Never understood picky eaters.... Most have no idea what they are missing.

[blind ear]

We prepare and eat everything mentioned here so far except blood pudding. (only because i don't know how to make) my kids are not fond of sauekraut.. but all the rest goes pretty good. i make a simple dish of parsnips, turnips and carrots just boiled and mashed up coarsley sprinkle on some nutmeg kids love it. We fix beef tongue, liver, heart chicken liver and gizzards, mexican menudo (tripe) brains stomach and even pigs feet. Oh and don't forget all the greens from the root veggies! beet tops turnip greens collard greens mustard greens all great!

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A whole bunch of Goodness!   +1   ear

[Conan The Librarian]

Northern houses are designed around sauerkraut. Heres the drill...
Husband eats large amount of sauerkraut
Wife goes upstairs in specially desighned two story house.
Wife goes into temporary pulmonary arrest from the stench but is able to activate bathroom vent fan and evacuate rest of family downstairs
Husband sleeps upstairs comfortably, sustaining minor methane intoxication that has temporary effect of inducing craving for more sauerkraut, and perhaps liverwurst and beer.
Wife and family sleep safely downstairs.
No lastng ill effects, just some typical wifeish criticisms
Husband reminds wife that her own fusillades after eating her comfort foods of choice are no different.

[ironglow]

I like the flavor of liverwurst..and I can recall many years ago, thinking kidney gravy was excellent...but I don't eat it anymore.
  As my veterinary friend (who shuns all "organ meat") tells me.. the liver is the cesspool for the body, while the kidneys are equivalent to a urinal strainer.    
   One organ which is OK is the heart..it is straight muscle.

[Old Fart]

That's what I thought the basements up north were for Conan....

[powderman]

My son had a late baseball game tonight so I missed dinner as I had to go right from work to the game.  I sat down to browse graybeard with one of my favorite sandwiches, a braunschweiger and onion.  Mmmm so darn good I would put it right up there with a fine ribeye... Also one of my favorites is blood sausage of the german variety, pared with oatmeal sausage and a beer it's hard to beat....  Never understood picky eaters.... Most have no idea what they are missing.

 
BUCKSKIN. Glad to see I'm not the only one who likes braunschweiger, but I gotta try onion on it next time. POWDERMAN. 

[Cabin4]

Ahh yes, braunschweiger! Now that is some good stuff on toast with mayo and sliced red onion!

[Cheesehead]

I also enjoy  braunschweiger. So maybe a braunschweiger and sauerkraut sandwich. . .

Cheese

[Oldshooter]

whew! I can smell it already! 

[Bob Riebe]

Gooseliver, buttermilk, sardines, pickled pigsfeet ,heart, beef liver all look like they are on the last generation of those who eat them.
I eat all these and out of 6 of my kids only three of them will eat liver and 2 will eat sardines.
But they or the others will not touch any of the other good stuff(since they moved out)

You are making me homesick for my youth.

As I said I have no love for liver, but my mother especially loved all of the above except for the sardines, and my grandparents on my dad's side liked those too.

Now I grew up eating toast with sour cream but you could not get me to drink buttermilk which tastes pretty much the same.
Now on a hot summer day, I can kill a quart of buttermilk in a matter of minutes.

My mom used to make the greatest chicken dumpling soup, ONLY, sometimes she would put chicken hearts inther.
I would be chowing down on the soup bite into one of those hearts and quickly say, "Mom, you put poop in the soup."

It took a lot to get Mom mad but she would snap back  "That's not poop. If you don't like it, pick them out!
--------------------------

I grew up, and still love to make, pork ribs and smoked sausage slow cooked in sauerkraut.
That over mashed potatoes was a Sunday dinner treat.
It is making me hungry just writing this.

[Victor3]

  Liverwurst stinks to high heaven and tastes like rotten blood.  Good riddence.
 
   Came from a time when people were so poor that they had to eat every conceivable piece of an animal.  Kidney pie anyone?   Blood pudding anyone?  Chittlins anyone?
 
    I have a simple rule.  I never eat organs, glands or fungus.  Period.  This takes care of most of the totally disgusting things that people will try to serve you, including mountain oysters,  mushrooms, "sweet meats" and liver.
 
   Best, Mannyrock

Mushrooms (gasp)? I may just have to put you on "Ignore" status for that.


You want to see some really nasty dishes just google up "Finnish traditional food." They can make a meal out of birch bark and snow. In my Mom's home town (Finnish settlement in Idaho) the milk man used to set a quart of blood next to the milk on the porch. 

[gypsyman]

Havn't had a braunschweiger sandwich in years.Cute story about braunschweiger. Back in the late 80's, when walleye fishing was fantastic on Lake Erie, I was usually out there 3-4 days a week fishing. A friend of mine, who had never fished the lake before, asked me if I would take him and his son out. 'Course I said yes. We were out there maybe 2-3 hours, and he was feeling seasick. He didn't want to go in, as his son was having a good time catching fish, so he tough't it out. I got hungry, and made a braunschwieger sandwich, with a big slice of onion and a little mustard. As I took the first bite, a piece of onion got on my chin, with just alittle mustard on it. That, was all it took. He was over the side pitching cookies. His son lasted about 10 more minute's, and he was losing it too, so we headed back in to shore. They never went fishing with me again. Still friends thou. Sounds like I need to make a trip to the meat market today, getting hungry. gypsyman