DULUTH, Minn. - We asked for the best venison sausage in the Northland, and you delivered. Boy, did you, the News Tribune reports.
It came in the mail. It came to our front desk.
Smoked snack sticks. Summer sausage. Pepper cheese snack sticks. Wild rice summer sausage. Jalapeno cheese summer sausage. And much, much more.
This was the News Tribunes first Great Venison Sausage Contest.
The entries came from Orr to Holyoke, from Sturgeon Lake to Silver Bay and from across Northwestern Wisconsin. Some hunters had made their own sausage. Other samples were sent in by commercial processors or hunters who had sausage processed commercially.
Now, the judges have spoken. From among the 42 different samples of venison sausage we received, they have chosen their winners.
Randy Strom, a railroad conductor from Duluth, won the amateur category with his delectable Smoked Venison Snack Sticks.
(Strom is a member of Local 1175, Duluth.)
In the commercial category, there was a tie between a Jalapeno Cheese Venison Summer Sausage from Jims Meat Market in Iron River and a Pepper Cheese Venison Snack Stick made by Pelican Bay Foods in Orr.
Winners receive no prize money, merely the satisfaction of knowing their sausage is among the best around.
The judging took place Tuesday afternoon in a conference room at the newspapers offices. Judges were Karen Dahl of Duluth, Phillip Lockett of Saginaw and Brian Borkholder of Hermantown, all deer hunters. Lockett is president of the Arrowhead Bowhunters Alliance, which conducts Duluths city bowhunt for deer. Borkholder keeps statistics for the hunt. Dahl takes part in the hunt.
The judges arrived late in the day with good appetites and circled the table with their score sheets, sampling bite-size samples set out on 42 paper plates. Sixteen samples represented the work of amateur sausage makers, and 26 were commercially prepared.
The judges had no idea whose sausage they were sampling. All entries were coded by number. Water and crackers were available as palate cleansers. Despite the volume of entries, the judges showed excellent endurance as they chewed and contemplated every last sample.
The judges mused out loud as they considered one sample after another.
What is that flavor in there?
That one doesnt do much for me.
Id give it a 3.8. I thought it was a nice jalapeno.
I really like this spicy stuff.
I like that. Its growing on me as I eat it.
I love jalapeno.
After more than an hour of sampling, the judges chose their finalists. Then they retasted those final few until the winners emerged.
The News Tribune wishes to thank all of you who took the time to submit your samples to us. They were very tasty, and we distributed the ample leftovers among our fellow reporters and photographers.
(This item appeared Dec. 15, 2008, in the News Tribune.)
