I’ve noticed that a lot of backyard sausage makers don’t bother. Instead, you preserve the sausage either by adding salt, which removes moisture that bacteria are fond of, or more commonly, by adding nitrates, which prevent the worst kinds of bacteria from growing.Ĭommercial meat processors are obliged by law to keep air-dried sausage refrigerated during the beginning of its aging. They’re in search of that old country store’s rendition of one of the state’s great regional delicacies.Īir-dried sausage is made like other country sausage, but it’s not smoked and doesn’t need to be kept refrigerated in the same way. Established in 1963, Mac’s attracts pilgrims from near and far. 242, between Benson and Spivey’s Corner, on my last trip to the farm. I found this round of air-dried country link sausage at Mac’s General Merchandise on NC Hwy. The air-dried sausage is what’s on my mind today. And just around the corner, I have a round of country sausage drying on the porch.

I have a bowl of speckled fall beans on the table here, next to my computer. I made them last week with the last tomatoes on my vines. I have jars of pickled green tomatoes on the windowsill, too. I have mullet roe drying in a sunny window next to my desk. In the meantime, I’ve been surrounding my writing desk with little things that will sustain my spirit until I’m at the farm again.įor me a lot of those little things, of course, are food. Sitting here all blurry-eyed in the middle of piles of old historical documents, I try to remind myself that there’s a season for all things, as Ecclesiastes tells us, and that I will have other days to walk in those fields and woods that I love so much back home. I’ve been working hard to finish my next book by New Years, so I haven’t visited my family’s farm in eastern North Carolina in weeks.

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