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Our History Page
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Article from
Philadelphia Inquirer
Sunday, July
17, 2005
By Rick Nichols
German Meat Masters
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At Illg’s in
Warrington, Bucks County, the man behind the counter may just be the
founder.
You can – in scattered farm markets and delis – find examples of Ernst
Illg’s precision-made German sausages and his lush, almost creamy cervelat
(a smoked salami), and, sometimes, the pink, pan-baked,
meticulously-seasoned lunch meats (Dutch loaf, veal loaf and beerwurst) and,
other times, natural-casing frankfurters that taste like they have an actual
link to their namesake city, and a best-seller, the plump, extraordinarily
juicy, veal-white bockwurst.
But to get the full
effect, says Ernie Illg Jr., the son of the founder, “we want people to come
to our headquarters. Here you get the full array. …”
The world
headquarters of Ernst A. Illg Meats-and its singular tidy processing plant
and well-staffed retail shop - is in a cornfield, down a country lane off
Folly Road in Warrington, Bucks County (though the mailing address is
Chalfont.). Its pedigree is hard to miss: A massive German flag, in bands
of black, red and gold, droops near the entry.
The grinders and
mixers are in the back. And the smokers, one still manually operated for
maximum smokiness. And blue-tiled chill rooms, too. But the array in the
shop, indeed, is astonishing - 45 authentic European specialties (and 35
more products, including hamburger fresh-ground from local beef) arranged in
cases like so many pastries in a patisserie.
Two things occur
here at headquarters. One, this is meat with a face. You will never
encounter Oscar Mayer, or Nathan. But Ernst Illg, the elder, is likely to
pop up here at any moment, defending the honor of scrapple – his fries up
crisp, the cornmeal coarser and toastier than most, the peppering leaving a
warm glow in your mouth. Or denouncing
dummkopfs who think hot dogs are made
with junk: His aren’t. Or professing his life quest to re-create the
regional flavors of curca-1930 Germany (where he got what amounts to a Ph.D.
in charcuterie) with the same passion his more technically minded son, Ernie
Jr., has for running the hickory smoker at temperatures that will “assure
proper lethality for pathogen growth.:
The second thing is
that Illg’s will likely spoil your next visit to the supermarket deli
counter. The aromatic seasonings here, the exquisite textures – even in the
bologna and delicate braunschwieger – are reminders of what deli meats once
were. And the sheer diversity is staggering: There’s Hungarian sausage and
smoked bacon made from pork bellies that are dry-cured with salt, not
wet-cured like most bacons. (This is why the Illg’s bacon for my BLT didn’t
shrivel up. It doesn’t have any water to steam off.) There are fingers of
landjaeger, and sleek, sweet veal loaf, and robust tubes of garlicky
beerwurst and rough rauchfleisch and pate-like teawurst and those light,
signature wieners redolent of allspice, cardamom, peppers, clove, onion, and
just a hint of garlic.
The smoked-ness is
more intense that most major brands; the sodium nitrite is dialed way down,
because the meats don’t require much shelf life. (Some bockwursts and
wieners are preservative-free). The smoked hams taste like ham because
they’re cured the way they were 80 years ago – without flavor-altering
phosphates that are typically added to retain water.
So, yes, even
though Illg’s employs not a single salesman, you can find its specialties
elsewhere – at the Reading Terminal Market or the Flourtown Farmers Market,
on the menu at the Mainland Inn, or Otto’s in Horsham, or Graumann’s Deli in
Wynnewood. Before Illg’s moved to Bucks County in 1964, you could find its
stuff at its original location at 29th and Master in the city’s
old Brewery Town section. But here you get the full array, with tubs of
fresh, vinegary German potato salad, and crunchy Kruegermann
bread-and-butter pickles.
And should you find
yourself stumped as to the proper uses of mettwurst or the difference
between cervelat and the house salami, a half dozen butchers are on hand to
answer your questions – or at any given moment, Ernie Jr., or, of course,
Ernst Illg himself.
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The
Best of
the Wurst
May 25th,1986
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At
the Apple Valley farm stand in Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market,
where I buy fancy lunch meats and sausages of Ernst Illg, I've learned
to spot my fellow customers. They're the ones who sneak open the
packages as soon as it is given to them, eat a slice or two out of
pure greed, then say, as I often do, "Um, could you give me
another half pound of this one? I'll probably finish it on the way
home." Illg's lunch meats are delicious. Made by a
small Pennsylvania company in the old-fashion German way, they are to
ordinary lunch meat what a BMW is to an Edsel. A lot
better. Ernst Illg says many customers eat lunch meat right at
the deli counter at his retail store in Chalfont, too.
"My customers are hungry!" he says
cheerfully. "We have a terrific clientele. They cook,
they know how to cook. Don't make any mistakes in this article;
we have people know as much about meats and wursts as I do, and you'll
never hear the end of it."
Ernst started out as an apprentice in the
meat business in 1944, in Stuttgart, Germany. "1944 -
things were not so good in Germany, you know. My father had a
still, he makes kirschwasser, you know it?" A German
liquor, flavored with cherries. "Goes very good with
sausage, too. My father said to me, why not be a butcher?
We had bakers, candy makers, makers of kirschwasser, mayors. Now
we need a butcher. I finished my apprenticeship, became a
journeyman, then went on to get my master's degree in
butchering. In Germany, you can't teach apprentices or
open your own butcher shop without one. It's not just free
enterprise like in America, you know. You have to know something
to have a store."
Ernst came to America in 1952 and settled in
the Brewerytown section of Philadelphia, at 29th and Master
Streets. "A good neighborhood for lunch meats and
sausage. German, Irish, Polish and Jewish people. They
liked our meats. So business exploded. And all we had was
a little rowhouse-in front, the store; in the middle, the icebox; in
back, the sausage kitchen; upstairs, the family. So we moved to
Chalfont. We took over a store from a butcher who was American
but with German parents, so he had a few German items. We just
put our items out, and all of a sudden we didn't know where all these
people were coming from. It's not just people from Germany like
these meats, you know. It's people from Poland, from Russia,
from all over Europe. We even make Hungarian sausage.
We're Germans, but we make it. And we make it good."
How many items does Ernst Illg make? I counted one
time and got up to 83 and then quit. We don't mind making lots
of items. If we sell a hundred, a hundred fifty pounds every
other week or so, we make it. Our biggest sellers, though, are
bockwurst, knockwurst, German hot dogs and calves' liverwurst."
All are available wherever Illg meats are
sold. Bockwurst is a German veal sausage (Illg's is 20% pork)
make in natural casings, without nitrites or additives of any
kind., "Our shelf life is only two days on bockwurst,"
Ernst says. "You must buy it and cook it. Or else,
into the freezer with it; it keeps fresh for weeks." This
is a wonderful sausage, with a delicate natural casing, a delicate
texture something like veal mousse, a very mild spicing. I eat
mine just boiled with sauerkraut and mash potatoes.
German frankfurters are also available without
nitrites in natural lamb casings, and Ernst would like to tell
everybody about them. "These are natural casings, the
traditional way, so the hot dogs don't get hard. You can't just
throw it in the pot and boil it. That delicate casing has a
tendency to split. I tell them, bring the water to a boil, drop
in the frankfurters, lower the flame right away to simmer, and simmer
10 minutes. If you split the skin, it still tastes good, sure,
but what it looks like? The skin on these franks is so fresh, so
delicate, so lightly crisp that you can hear the prickles of the fork
as they enter it. Extraordinary food!
Calves' liverwurst is a mild liverwurst spread -
mildly spiced, almost like a fine pate in taste and texture, but with
a delicious robust flavor all its own. There are many, many
other items that no store except Illg's carries and some deserve
special mention. Westphalian ham is a fresh-tasting, mildly
smoked ham with the texture of slightly air-dried meat - amazingly moist
and delicious for an American ham, something like a delicately smoked
Italian prosciutto. Dried beef (often call moist dried beef) is
just that - a dried beef that is much, much higher in moisture, and much,
much lower in salt than the American style. "You can make
creamed chipped beef with it," Ernst says, "but it is so
moist you can just cut it thicker and make sandwiches with
it." Both ways it is extremely good.
Black Forest ham, drier than Westphalian, is best
described by Ernst" "You tasted it? Very
sweet. Not at all salty. Not at all. We keep our
salt down. Delicious ham." And for any kid who grew
up suffering on that bland, flabby non-flavored stuff called bologna
in America, Illg's bologna is a delightful surprise. This stuff
is actually food! "Yes, we are careful with bologna, Ernst
says. "We make it from the same base as our beerwurst, a
little different. Not too much fat, no grain filler. It is
food, good food. And" (a pause to show how important this
is) "kids love it."
Ernst Illg, with his wife Magdalene,
"that I couldn't do with without," and son Ernst Jr., who is
with us in everything we do," supply farmer's markets and fancy
retail stores throughout the Delaware Valley. The Ills Store, at
365 Folly Road, Chalfont, PA is open from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM Tuesday
through Friday and from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday.
"Tell people to call (215-343-0670) before they come, and I will
give them directions," says Ernst Illg. "Sometimes
places in the country are hard to find." |
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