iN PHOTOS: Kamloops deli making authentic European sausage for more than four decades
The tantalizing aromas of smoked sausage and buttery cheeses waft through a bustling deli on Kamloops’ North Shore where an endless line up of customers peruse a vast selection of European delicacies.
“I’ve been coming here since 1984, they have so many things other places don’t have,” said one customer passing by.
Imported cheeses with names that include German Emmental and German Tilset line a top row behind a glass while along the bottom are all kinds of meats including beef jerky, chorizo and German salamis.
Through the back door is a large noisy workshop where racks of smoked sausages and thick slabs of bacon hang. An employee is busy making head cheese that smells of vinegar and spices.
“We use boneless pork loins and cure them, then cut them into little cubes,” said deli owner Jurgen Gemsa pointing to a container of meat soaking in a liquid mixture.
“We put the water and gelatin and spices in there. This is a vinegar head cheese," he said. "Back in the day you used to boil the pig head, that’s where you get the gelatin, now you can get it from a powder that’s made from ground up bones.”
Jurgen’s dad Gerhard Gemsa opened Gary’s European Sausage and Deli in Kamloops in 1978 after learning to make sausages in Germany. He borrowed $50,000 from good friends and got started.
Jurgen took over the operation in the early 1990s after a several years of building houses. He stepped into his now late father’s shoes and never looked back.
“I was getting laid off in the winters, I worked for my dad in the winters, and I thought, if I don’t learn the family business, I’ll probably kick myself in the ass for not learning it,” Jurgen said.
He orders most of the meat for his sausages from the Fraser Valley, a couple of thousand pounds every week - and 99 per cent of it is pork.
“Some sausages have beef added to give it a nicer colour, but beef is a drier meat and its water content doesn’t give the right texture,” Jurgen said.
His team spends a day separating the meat into different grinds where tougher cuts need a finer grind and bigger, softer muscle meats get a coarser grind to make little juicy ham pieces in the sausage.
The rest of the week is set aside for sausage making and at this time of year hunters are bringing in their elk, moose and deer for custom cutting and wrapping.
The recipes Jurgen uses are based on the same ones his dad brought from Germany all those years ago.
He said his dad wasn’t the best teacher, preferring to do the jobs himself instead, but when his dad had a heart attack and was stuck in the hospital Jurgen was able to sit next to him and write down the recipes.
“We’ll get a spice blend for say, a beer sausage, and use it as a base but we’ll throw our own, original recipe into that.”
Thanks to technology, curing the sausages doesn’t take much time compared to past days. The sausages are cured with salt, put in a casing and put in the smokehouse for up to two hours.
“With all the technology, with humidifying rooms it gets done quickly,” Jurgen said. “In the old days, like with certain dried salamis, my dad would make them and they’d hang in the cooler for four months and they’d ripen.”
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The deli has been in the same shopping centre since opening but moved buildings twice to make more room for a growing customer base.
Jurgen said his current customer base grows by roughly four per cent ever year, but most of his customers are regulars.
“People in my parent’s generation eat very little of this stuff and there’s not a lot of them around, but their kids and their kid’s kids come in here," he said. “You used to come in here when you were a kid and one of the girls would give you a little European wiener. Any customer who is 40 years old will remember that.”
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The only time Jurgen eats sausage is when it come fresh out of the smokehouse.
“I love it when an jalapeno cheese smoky comes out piping hot, the cheese is melted, there is nothing better,” he said.
Located at 750 Fortune Drive, Gary’s Sausage and Deli also offers mustards from different countries, locally made barbecue sauces and honey, spices, sauerkrauts and pickled goods.
The business is known for its community involvement offering fundraising sausage packages to local event planners.
— This article was updated at 10:39 a.m. Monday, Oct. 28, 2024 to clarify the relationship between father and son.
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