Neglect kale. San Francisco is a world sausage heaven

By ES Burkett

Special to The Examiner

For San Francisco’s sausage aficionados, there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is: The City is a great place to get a fix of your favorite protein. The bad news? Apparently, we’re not eating as much of it as we used to.

Until recently, the Bay Area ranked 10th nationally in sausage consumption, according to Eric Mittenthal, president of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, based in Washington, DC But we’ve slipped, falling to 11th place behind such sausage heavyweights as New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. yes Los Angeles.

Nonetheless, sausage fans in the Bay Area put away almost 14 million pounds of the stuff in 2021, or more than $76 million worth. In fact, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Giants fans consumed 450,000 sausages a year at Oracle Park alone, said Mittenthal.

Those figures, however, represent sausage sales for big national producers, Mittenthal added, based on retail numbers from chains such as Safeway and Walmart. Locally, plenty of small independent and family-run businesses are churning out their own sausages in the kitchens of butcher shops and neighborhood grocers all around town. A few have been doing it for quite a while.

Sausages are on old food. Human beings have been making them at least since the Sumerians were trying to figure out what to do with all their meat scraps some 5,000 years ago. Recipes from that era describe storing food in sheep stomachs — a sort of ancient haggis — and there are references to lop cheung dating back to 1500 BC Sausage, cured or smoked, provided an easy way to transport otherwise perishable food products at a time when refrigeration was almost nonexistent.

Sausages at Wycen Foods in Chinatown on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)

In Chinatown, two companies make lop cheung, the quintessential Chinese sausage that frequently appears in sticky rice and stews, as well as lop yok —bacon — and other cured meats. Wycen Foods (862 Clay St.) has been in business for 74 years. Down the hill, however, and away from the crush of Stockton and Grant streets, is the venerable Mow Lee Shing Kee & Company (774 Commercial St.). In business since 1856, Mow Lee draws customers from around the Bay Area.

Inside the dimly lit store, customers are making selections as the elderly clerk reaches from behind a screen of plastic film, selecting pieces of cured chicken and duck legs, bacon and sausages from open plastic bins. Peering into the back of the shop reveals what looks like an old Wedgewood stove, burners loaded with giant pots. Outside the shop’s unassuming storefront, Alex Lee is waiting for her mother to finish up shopping inside. They drove over from Danville.

“We only come here (to San Francisco) for this,” said Lee, 44, holding a shopping bag filled with what she said are six months’ worth of provisions. Since moving to the Bay Area from New York City 10 years ago, Lee has been a big fan of Mow Lee, noting there was nothing like it back there.

“It reminds me of the true flavors from China,” she said.

About six blocks north, Little City Market (1400 Stockton St.) has been making sausages in North Beach since 1951. Little City is a classic old butcher shop with a red awning, deli counters running the length of the store and photos from its more than 70 years in business lining the walls. Mike Spinali, 55, took over the shop from his father, Ron Spinali, who retired last year.

“After college, I started working here and just kept working here,” he said.

Spinali makes the sausages from more than 35 recipes he’s collected or developed over the years. Three are in regular rotation, however, including Puccini, a northern Italian specialty, the Sicilian with fennel and their spicy calabasi. They also offer bulk sausage for making sauces and baby Italian, smaller than the others and milder, making it a great breakfast sausage, Spinali said. If there’s time — he runs the shop on his own now — he tries to make specialty sausages for the holidays, including varieties for Christmas, Halloween and Cinco de Mayo.

Across town in Dogpatch — San Francisco’s old meatpacking district — Olivier’s Butchery (1192 Illinois St.) makes 10 varieties of sausage, rotating Toulouse, Italian, Provençal, cheddar jalapeño, merguez and others on a weekly basis. Owner Olivier Cordier learned his trade from his father back in his native Burgundy, France. He’s been in business since 2011.

The shop makes sausage twice a week, said Lemy Silverman, the store’s manager.

“Everything is made by hand in the shop,” said Silverman. “We use the freshest ingredients and the meat is used from whole carcasses that are delivered to us when needed. The production of sausages requires the most effort from all the team members. We make our own mix of spices and package everything ourselves.”

Head west toward the Richmond and you’ll find Polish-style sausages at Seakor Polish Deli (5957 Geary Boulevard). Owner Jerry Seakor typically makes several varieties of sausage including kielbasa and long, thin kabanosy, as well as head cheeses. In addition, his small store offers a wide variety of imported Eastern European products, including jams, pickles, preserves, candies and beverages.

There are plenty of other sausage makers in The City. In the Mission, Casa Guadalupe (2909 Mission St. and 2999 Mission St.) turns out a wide variety of sausages, including Salvadoran and Mexican style chorizos.

Toney Bi-Rite Market (550 Divisadero St.) in NoPa and in the Mission’s gourmet ghetto (3639 18th St.) sells a dozen flavors, including confit garlic and herb, merguez, Italian and several varieties of chicken sausages.

In Bernal Heights, Avedano’s Meats (235 Cortland Ave.) turns out a bourbon-and-sage sausage, in addition to more traditional offerings such as Italian, bratwurst and breakfast. Sausage fans in the Marina have Marina Meats (2395 Chestnut St.) and folks in Hayes Valley can pick up sausages and in-shop cured salumi at the Fatted Calf (320 Fell St.).

So there’s mostly good news for San Francisco’s sausage aficionados, especially those who appreciate a wide variety of sausages made by people who honor one of the world’s oldest prepared foods.