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Publication Date: Friday, March 23, 2001

Dittmer's wurst is best in state

Americans have lost touch with their food; nearly everything we eat is mass-produced and neatly packaged. But before food production became a mysterious and industrialized affair, artisans around the country took pride in making foods from generations-old recipes.

And while few of these small producers are left, Dittmer's Gourmet Meats and Wurst House, at 400 San Antonio Rd., has made award-winning, hand-crafted meat products since 1978 using recipes brought from Germany by Dittmer Bubert.

Bubert, who began learning to make sausage at age 14, says that "Mountain View does not even know we're here." But his meats have consistently won awards since he opened the store.

Recently, Bubert turned the sausage-making duties over to his son, Mark. Under Mark's supervision, eight of Dittmer's sausages last year received awards from the California Association of Meat Processors.

These awards, which included best in show for a kalbsliverwurst, or calf liver sausage, are the latest in a long line of awards for the store.

Mark, 30, attributes the superiority of the store's sausages to the fact that "they're not mass-produced, and we're not putting a bunch of bad stuff in there." He and his father see every item that goes into each sausage, and, said Mark, they do not use the meat industry by-products (such as beef lips) that one finds in commercially marketed frankfurters.

Mark has been making sausage full-time since age 18, and he works hard to preserve the high quality and traditional European methods of preparation that have earned Dittmer's a loyal clientele, which he said is at least 60 percent European immigrants.

"I have German people who come in here and say it tastes better than it does at home," said Mark Bubert. Some patrons have even taken his Nuremberg bratwurst back to Nuremberg, where the natives proclaimed that it tasted better than the local version. Mark attributes these reviews to the fact that his father is "very strict" about the recipes.

Dittmer's produces 40 different kinds of sausage, in addition to smoked ham, bacon, duck, and goose, all of which are prepared on site.

Mark said that in more than four decades of sausage-making, his father has gotten recipes for traditional sausages from all over Europe. These include Ukrainian and Hungarian specialties and newer versions of older recipes.

At this year's Meat Processors awards, held in a tightly controlled laboratory at Fresno State University, Dittmer's won merit awards for its Mozart loaf, fresh herb sausage, thuringer bratwurst, German salami, Weisswurst, frankfurters and zwiebling.

The sausages are graded on criteria including color, internal appearance and texture, and aroma/flavor/edibility. Dittmer's sausages routinely score high marks in all these categories.

Mark said his production process, while time-consuming, ensures a quality product.

To make the kalbsliverwurst that won best in show, Mark Bubert said he starts with calf livers, which are cooked and chopped until they reach a soft and spreadable consistency. The liver is then mixed with onions and pork to add flavor, and after further blending with herbs and spices, the mixture is extruded into a natural casing and cooked.

Last Tuesday, Bubert was making bratwurst, Italian pork sausage, and chicken and portabello mushroom sausage with Daniel Antonio Portillo, who has worked with the Buberts for 15 years. Portillo, who speaks little English, and the Buberts communicate through a combination of Spanish, German and English.

Mark Bubert said Portillo's experience and ability to make the products look as good as they taste have been key components in many of the company's awards.

In making the bratwurst, Mark demonstrated how pork shoulders -- the most flavorful part of the pig, he says -- are ground and mixed with spices before they are extruded into a lamb intestine casing. The bratwursts are made for frying and are therefore sold raw.

Other products take days, weeks, or months to prepare. Westphalia hams spend 3 months going in and out of a cold smoker before they are ready. Mark Bubert said this process results in a "very strong, very smoky" flavor that is unattainable without this time-intensive process.

Salamis and pepperonis put into the smoker Monday were finished Tuesday. Some of the sausages are cooked and then smoked; others are cooked entirely in the smoker.

The store's most popular product is its chicken and portabello mushroom sausage. This recipe, created by Dittmer Bubert, is made with the large mushrooms and chicken breasts, which are ground together, cased and cooked.

In addition to sausages, the store sells pork chops, ham, and bacon. Smoked pigs' feet are a popular food, and even smoked ears are sold as dog treats.

Mark Bubert said he enjoys his job, and is comfortable around the meat and machinery. He said he grew up around the sausage-making equipment, and is proud to be preserving -- and improving -- the European recipes that his father built the business on.