One matter for very serious dialogue will be the actual national origin of
this sausage. While we think of it as being Polish, it would appear that all Eastern European cultures and tribes have, as a staple, a ground and stuffed casing meat product that sure looks like kielbasi. And, yes, kil-BAH-see is indeed my favored pronunciation, so going with kielbasi as a favored spelling only makes sense. I know no one, and remember the bride is Ukrainian, who calls it kil-BAH-suh, yet many insist on the spelling of kielbasa. It's America, a free country...so far.Even The Plymouth "Kielbasa" Festival, three days of devoted celebration of the sausage, spells it with an "a" and not an "i." Yet I'd wager a half dozen rings of Bosak's finest smoked that, if you could find three people at the festival who call it anything other than kil-BAH-see , that's pushing things.
And while we're at it, how about a Lackawanna County kielbasi maker winning this competition again? Bosak's is in Olyphant.
Luzerne Countians, mostly Wyoming Valley-ites, are pretty confident about having the best when it comes to ethnic dishes, and rightly so, yet a northerner takes home the prize again. Born and raised in Lackawanna County, now making my home in Luzerne County, I am not about to take a side here.
There is likewise the bologna versus baloney controversy, a discussion for another time. For now, though, do remember that bologna, or baloney, is also a smoked sausage, as is the beloved hot dog.
It wasn't baloney or hot dog I was after, it was kielbasi. I needed smoked kielbasi. The yearning was kielbasi, and the palate wants what it wants. Smoked kielbasi, nothing else could fill the void.
Two times a year, the taste for kielbasi
is irresistible. My guess is that you can figure when those two times might be. One of them just passed, and with it, the urge diminished some but not altogether. Come Christmas, come Easter, I just want some good smoked kielbasi. See those dangling beauties over there? That's what it should look like, needs to look like.There is nothing fancy about kielbasi, it couldn't be more peasant if it were made of barn sweepings mixed with moat water. Kielbasi is the essence of peasant, using cuts of meat those privileged in ages past wouldn't touch. What's in the sausage? Right. Don't ask. With genuine kielbasi, it has to be pork. Those serfs who somehow created this thing we love, created it with pork. Again, don't ask what's in that sausage.
Contest winners aside, it was too far a drive to Olyphant. My timing was bad. Should timing have a face, it would now be giving me the stink-eye. If timing is indeed everything, I was again with nothing. Mid-afternoon, on a Sunday nonetheless, is not the time make a kielbasi run in any direction.
Just so we'll all be in the same culinary pew, the kielbasi of which I speak is not what often passes for the same in large chain supermarkets, vacuum-packed and mass-produced and all. Although that "Smoked Polish Sausage" ain't half bad, it's not kielbasi to me. While not necessarily homemade, real kielbasi is undeniably handmade, then smoked with real wood in a real smokehouse. It's not born of extrusion from a machine, then soaked in some smoke-flavored brine and pronounced the real deal.
Without time to go north, I turned south.
Nanticoke sounds like a reasonable place to start, and with any luck, find what I need. The Park Market's kielbasi is a legend unto itself. Whether award-winning or not, it has a solid and vociferously defended reputation. Sounds good to me.
Closed.
I missed Park's early shut-down on Sundays at 1:00 PM by little more than an hour. If it were by five minutes, could be I would have tried the door, knocked on the window, been the kind of annoying clod I myself so dislike. Kielbasi deprivation is nasty. The store was dark. Me, too.
I remembered another family-owned Nanticoke store famous for kielbasi. That would be Swantko's. Great! Where is it? I didn't know.
It was there this past weekend, right on the north side of Patriot Park in Nanticoke, that old world Europe met late 2009 technology. I wanted that kielbasi. Googling Swantko's on my BB was easy, so was punching its address into my GPS. Swantko's was but a five or six minute ride.
Closed.
Sadly, closed for good. A sign in the window of Swantko's narrow white wood frame building, sitting in a residential neighborhood in the Hanover Section of Nanticoke, thanked loyal customers for their years of patronage. Good-bye. Swantko's is no more, apparently having turned out the lights for the last time not long ago. Did they survive through Christmas?
What's a kielbasi-loving Celt to do? Duryea! Komensky's on Main! Turn north, make the run.
Closed.
My own fault, again timing is the key, a couple hours earlier and it could have been kielbasi for dinner.
What I won't mention by name are the family-owned markets I did check that didn't have anything that even looked like a ring of kielbasi. One market almost always has it, Thomas' Family Market on Rt. 309, it's their own and very good, but they were sold out by the time I came manically panting in the door. My problem, certainly not theirs. If you can't sell out kielbasi at Christmas, just when can you?
Maybe this coming weekend.
Smoked kielbasi - not exactly the Breakfast of Champions, but worth whatever drive it takes.
