Attention sausage lovers (and by sausage lovers I don’t mean fans of Jimmy Dean), if you like the old-fashioned sausage like your Grandma made in the kitchen, there is one product you must try. It’s Spencer Sausage and I’ve only been able to find it on the Outer Banks and in the far eastern part of North Carolina.
When Nancy and I were at Nags Head last week, I made a special trip over to Food-A-Rama in Manteo to track it down. Sure enough, they carried the entire line and I bought two packages of old fashioned, hot, stuffed link sausage, one that I ate for breakfast every morning and another for the freezer.
It is simply the best sausage I have ever put in my mouth.
Spencer’s is made over in Washington, NC, not far from Greenville. They grind up the whole hog and squeeze it into natural casings, season it with a bit of kick and it is out-of-sight good.
They make it in ground-form for patties and they also stuff it in a long roll of casings – my favorite. Preservatives in sausage add to the shelf life, but not to the flavor. Spencer sausage doesn’t need a long shelf life because it doesn’t sit on shelves very long. It goes immediately into iron skillets waiting for a couple sunny side-up eggs and a big helping of grits.
Spencer is a family-run business, founded in Columbia, NC in the late 1920’s. It remains a family-run business, and you can tell. This is a high-quality product – the best sausage there is, outstanding flavor and very little fat. If you find yourself in Eastern, NC (you can’t buy it here) and you love sausage, make it a point to visit a few grocery stores and if you find some Spencer Sausage, buy several packages, and bring them home.