ISSUE 43, CHRISTMAS, Part 2: Venison Sausage Breakfast
Venison Sausage
When we think of president Lyndon B. Johnson’s contributions to American gastronomy there is only one thing that you can point to as being significant. He put venison sausage on the culinary map. It was his signature food. In the 1950s he schmoozed his fellow politicians in Texas feeding them venison sausage patties on biscuits. The planning breakfasts he held always featured the sausages processed from deer harvested on the LBJ ranch. When he moved into the White House, he generated a blizzard of newspaper stories when he informed reporters that venison sausage was the focal point of his Texas style Christmas breakfast.
Venison sausage for Christmas breakfast was a foodway not invented in Texas, though that state’s venison traditions are old and strong. Archibald Rutledge (1883-1873), the South Carolina sportsman author, documented the typical Christmas breakfast served early in the twentieth century on country farmsteads: “snowy hominy, cold wild turkey, brown crumbly corn breads, venison sausage, beaten biscuits, steaming coffee, homemade orange marmalade.” The pairing of venison patties with biscuits was ancient—and the use of beaten biscuits almost archaic in its traditionalism. Most southerners were using baking soda and baking powder to work their biscuits in the last half of the 19th century.
About those venison patties—Here is a recipe from the period that Rutledge is recalling.
Venison Sausage Patties The Journal January 13, 1900
After using the loin and round which contain most tender part of the venison, there will be left quite an amount of lean meat, which is too tough to broil to advantage. Carefully remove all the tough membranes, fat and hairs and any splinters of bone, then run it through a meat chopper. Mix it with half as much fat salt pork, which is better than venison fat, as it seasons the meat and is less tallow and hard. Season to taste with mixed sweet herbs and pepper. Mix all very thoroughly, and pack it away in small cans or bags; cover with hot lard or pork fat. When needed remove the fat, cut in slices and cook them in a hot over, as you would pork sausage. This will keep some time in cold weather, but if you have only a small quantity and that for immediate use, make it into small flat cakes and cook till brown.
Some comments on this recipe—the use of pork fat as an addition is a hallmark of southern venison sausage making; beef suet is more common in northern states. Because seasoning is where a sausage maker’s personal creativity is registered, it is not detailed in the recipe. There are several seasoning paths: sage + allspice + cayenne with ample salt was a standard home formula. Certain of the custom meat processing plants in the South began in the LBJ era to go for a formula that included salt, black pepper, mace, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and garlic powder. While the processing houses will make fresh sausage, they tend to stuff their sausage meat in casings.
In South Carolina most venison sausage was home made until the latter half of the twentieth century. Then regional custom meat processing centers took over the creation of sausage, making fresh sausage, pickled links (often dyed red), and some long sausages for smoking. Off the top of my head I can think of 301 Processing in Effingham, 601 Deer and Hog Proccessing in St. Matthews (pickled red links a specialty), B&B wild game in Walterboro, Butcher Boys Venison in Summer, Claussen in Florence, Edisto Outdoors in Cottageville, Hank’s in Barnwell, and Carolina Meat and Game in Ridgeland. There may be others I’ve forgotten. You take the deer you shot to them, and they’ll give you loin the steaks and sausage. Some will make venison ham as well.
As for the hominy served on the side of you Christmas venison sausage patties and biscuits it was always white grits made out of sea island white flint corn in the Lowcountry, or white dent grits (like Cocke’s Prolific or Hickory King) in the upcountry.
Sources: “Venison Sausage Patties,” The Journal (January 13, 1900), 1. Archibald Rutledge, “Plantation Christmas in Carolina,” The State (November 27, 1949), 6-A. “Festive Christmas Awaits LBJ,” Lexington Herald (December 20, 1963), 10. Charlotte Walker, “Venison Sausage,” Charleston Evening Post (February 2, 1974), 13. Charlotte Walker, “Hunter’s Venison Sausage,” Charleston News and Courier (October 30, 1977), 83. Merie Ellis, “If you have venison in the freezer here’s a recipe that might prove useful,” Columbia Record (December 12, 1984), 34.