“Nie dla psa kiełbasa,” is a sardonic thing you can say in Polish when something is (or should be) unattainable for someone who desires it. It means “the sausage is not for dogs.” Not speaking Polish, it’s precisely the way I feel when I get a craving for kielbasa and find myself in one of the city’s wondrous Polish delis, such as Rich’s, Dunajec, or Kurowski’s. These places all smell bewitchingly of smoke, pork, garlic, and spice, and all feature long rows of dangling meat, hung far out of reach behind the counter. Each individual expression of girth, length, and hue is labeled with its Polish name, and because these places are often thick with people who know exactly what they want and how to ask for it, there’s little chance for someone who grew up on the featureless Hillshire Farm casserole standby to figure out what’s what.
The end of Lent, when everybody’s anxious to satisfy their nagging meat tooth, is a particularly busy time of year for Empire Andy’s, but Kolasa still found time to walk me through the plant last week—a labyrinthine sausage forest—and give me a short course in Polish sausageology, which led, along with additional guidance from special correspondents Dziemian and Patryk Carwinski, to the following, not-comprehensive kielbasa cheat sheet, which you can refer to the next time you feel like you deserve some sausage.
- Kabanos (cob-ah-no-sss): Long, thin, lean snack sticks with a hint of allspice, in a few varieties, such as the chewy smoked and dried kabanosy suszane and a chicken variety: kabanosy z kury.
Mysliwska (mi-shh-leave-ska, “Hunter”): Semidry, lean, dark and smoky, it’s named for the hunters who may have carried it as provisioning. It has a peppery kick that can stand up in bigos, or hunter’s stew. (pictured below)
- Weselna (ve-sell-nah, “Wedding”): A double-smoked pork sausage ideal for sobering up drunk wedding guests.
Andy’s Deli & Mikolajczyk Sausage Shop 5442 N. Milwaukee 773-631-7304andysdeli.net
Kurowski’s Sausage Shop 2976 N. Milwaukee 773-645-1692
Dunajec Bakery & Deli 5062 S. Archer 773-585-9611l
Rich’s Deli 857 N. Western 773-235-5263richswestern.com
