Texas Sausage Trail
The Texas Sausage Trail is not as established as the Texas BBQ Trail (that has its own promotional website). The term became popularized in the January 2003 Texas Co-op Power magazine with its feature on the “Central Texas Sausage Trail.” Two Chowhound-Texas website posts in 2007 and 2008 are titled “The Texas Sausage Trail.” Some places on the “sausage trail” are the same as the “barbecue trail” places, but quite a few are different. The Texas BBQ Trail is more German and the Texas Sausage Trail is more Czech.
Another Central Texas food tour is Lockhart’s Triple Bypass Tour.
Google Groups : alt.folklore.urban
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: Olivers
Date: 1999/10/09
Subject: Re: Kidney theft vectored in college class
I am no Aggie, although my grandaddy was (‘98[1898 that is]), along with my youngest daughter (‘95), and I codonored Governor Ross’s desk to Aggieland, but was reared among the fleshpots and barbecue joints of the “Great Brisket and Sausage Trail”, the Tscherman-Czech belt which extends from Penelope, Abbott and West Station down 77, the Drovers’ Route, by Heidenheimer, Taylor, Elgin, Columbus, Halletsville, Schulenberg, around Shiner and on up to Fbourg, and do break bread (to wipe the grease off my chin) in College Station now and again.
Sam Houston Electric Cooperative
Texas Co-op Power magazine is a publication for Sam Houston Electric Cooperative, Inc. members and their families. Every issue is filled with news important to the Cooperative and its members including energy saving advice, safety tips and guest commentaries.
(...)
January 2003
Report of Annual Meeting; Feature on the Central Texas Sausage Trail; Photo History of Bosque County; “When I Was a Kid in Kopperl,” by Stever Fromholz.
Texas - Chowhound
The Texas Sausage Trail - Vincek’s, East Bernard
During hunting season there is a sign hanging on the door of Vincek’s Smokehouse in East Bernard which lists names and phone numbers of butchers that hunters can call if they have an animal that needs to be processed and Vincek’s is closed. From my very first visit I was impressed that service is a hallmark of this establishment. (I’m not a hunter and had never seen something like that before - I’ve since learned it’s common practice). It seemed to me when I was there a week before Christmas several years ago that half the town of East Bernard must be working there preparing party trays while the other half was just shopping or visiting with staff and getting big hugs as they shared stories of families and the holidays.. I felt a little lonely until I got some food to chow down on. Vincek’s is a butcher shop, and a very large one for a community the size of East Bernard, a smokehouse, a bbq joint with about 8 tables, and a Czech bakery. There are a few convenience store items and a line-up of home canned goods available also.
(...)
Vincek’s is in a plain brick block building, devoid of windows and marked only by one block-lettered sign, located on TX 60 just south of US 90A, the Houston-San Antonio highway before I-10 was built, in East Bernard, TX, about 60 miles west of Houston. The starkness of the exterior will completely mislead you about the delights awaiting within.
They close at 6pm Tu-Fri, earlier than that on Saturday and Sunday and they’re closed completely on Monday.
So far as I know their sausages are sold only on premises. They do mail-order but don’t have a website so you have to know what to order when you call.
Vincek’s:
http://i9.tinypic.com/7xe6ihy.jpg
Some Vincek’s goodies brought home: a couple of sausages (beef and beef and pork), kolaches, hot pepper cheese summer sausage and beef sticks. For reference, the platter is 10.5 inches in diameter. (The summer sausage is particularly good when heated a little so the cheese and fats begin to run):
http://i11.tinypic.com/6jvbkld.jpg
brucesw Dec 21, 2007 07:40AM
Texas - Chowhound
The Texas Sausage Trail - Austin’s, Eagle Lake
I’ve driven through Eagle Lake many times and seen Austin’s BBQ but it had never been open and I had come to the conclusion it had gone out of business since the publication of Robb Walsh’s BBQ Legends. But one Saturday last winter as I rolled through town I spied smoke and pulled right in. That was when I first saw the sign on the side of the building, well back from the street, that they’re only open Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Four days out of the week, Austin’s looks like an abandoned filling station, but on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, they open up the former service bays and roll out these big smokers and get to smoking.
I was not at all hungry but wanted to sample some of their wares while I could so I ordered a sliced beef sandwich. It was a very large sandwich on a big, soft, fresh bun; the meat had a 1/8” smoke ring and was tender, juicy and smoky, and the fixings included pickles, onions and sauce. My sandwich could have used a little more meat to fill up that big bun but it was good. There are some tables in a fenced in, covered area on the other side of the building but it was very chilly that day and I ate in the car. In fact every time I’ve been to Austin’s it’s either been miserably rainy or miserably cold and I’ve eaten in the car. There’s barely room inside to sidle along between the front wall and the counter to place your order.
Judging great Texas Q by a sliced beef sandwich is a mistake as far as I’m concerned and the only conclusion I drew from my first visit was that Austin’s was good enough to warrant another visit, so a couple of weeks later I made a special trip out to Eagle Lake and got a plate with one of their 2 varieties of potato salad and some beans on the side. I had re-read Walsh’s comments in the meantime and been reminded sausage is their best offering; Walsh also recommends avoiding the sauce but I come from a long line of DIYers and had to sample it for myself.
The brisket had less smoke ring than before but still was above average I’d say, but not really remarkable and it didn’t stand up to the sauce very well. The sauce is very tomato-ey and has the consistency of ketchup and I did not care for it..The potato salad was very good, better than what you get at many Q joints, and obviously home-made; the beans were very basic pintos with no special seasoning and were actually a little underdone so there’s no question they don’t just open up a can and dump these in a pot.
The highlight of the meal was the awesome sausage. I was so enthused by the sausage that I made a note to myself that it was quite possibly second only to Louie Mueller’s in Taylor. That’s very high praise and since I’ve had it three times now I do include it in my Top 4 of sausages at Texas BBQ joints (the list also includes Mueller’s, Black’s, and City Market in Luling). Though the sausage stood up to the sauce okay it would have been much better without it.
On still another visit I had a sausage plate and just opening it up brought a big smile to my face not only from the aroma but just the appearance of the food:
http://i32.tinypic.com/r2s4f9.jpg
You can tell just by looking at that sausage it’s going to be great. The sides included more of the home-made mayo potato salad - note the large chunks of potato - the salad also includes sweet red and green bell peppers (they also have a mustard potato salad). The slaw is of a creamy, sweet variety and I prefer vinegary but this was very good, ice cold and obviously freshly made, the cabbage still good and crisp. Unfortunately they didn’t hear me when I said to hold the sauce but at least the sausage wasn’t swimming in it.
(...)
brucesw Jan 19, 2008 10:37AM
Austin - egosumquisum (Livejournal)
Bubba-Q!
May. 8th, 2008 at 1:20 PM
Sausage: To me, sausage is the King Of Meats despite its reputation as where all the undesirable bits go. Its a highly efficient self-contained package of fat and protein that preserves well and can be flavored however your imagination desires (my ideal food pr0n is staring at the wurstacopia of sausages behind the butcher case at Central Market). When it comes to sausage, there is definitely a major division within central Texas BBQ whose border runs roughly north-south down I35. West of Austin in the hill country most sausage is of the commercial variety that is highly macerated meat stuffed tightly into long collagen casing links such as you’ll find at Cooper’s in Llano or Opie’s in Spicewood. This stuff is generally not much better than you get from your average generic pre-packaged grocery store sausage (think Ecrich). Bland. Boring. Crap. Where sausage is done Right(tm) is down the so-called Sausage Trail from Taylor all the way down through the sausage powerhouses of Elgin and Lockhart down to Luling. Here sausage is primarily stuffed with courser ground beef (sometimes pork) with larger chunks of fat and stuffed into shorter generally natural casing (though more and more are switching to collagen to cut costs). The flavor is much bolder with more pepper evident and the wood they smoke with is almost always exclusively post oak unlike the mesquite usually used elsewhere. The ends of the short links are usually tied together so that they can be more easily hung for smoking. Some people find this style of sausage a bit too fatty, but for me there can be no substitute. The big players on the sausage trail are Taylor Cafe in Taylor, Southside Market and Myers in Elgin, Kreuz Market and Smitty’s in Lockhart, and City Market in Luling. All of these serve fine examples of this style but I must tip my hat to Smitty’s in Lockhart. The sausage is always consistent, never too fatty and always well spiced. I’d match this stuff up with the best the wurstmeisters in Bavaria can produce. A wonder bread Smitty’s sausage wrap, a cold Pearl beer, a cup of spicy pinto beans and a juicy jalapeno. Thats what my Death Row last meal would be.