Kopfwurst

[cobra6223]

Anybody ever heard of Kopfwurst or ever made it? From what I goggled it sounds like head cheese but yet its not head cheese. Thanks Tim

[seemore]

Tim read this you guys are not far from there give them a call
Kelley, Alan, Shirley and Edgar Wuennecke (left to right) pose in City Meat Market in New Albin

A meat market that opened about 1880 and has been in the same family since 1882 still draws customers from miles around. But like this community of 535 people, City Meat Market has changed with the times. It has carried some grocery products since the late 1950s,and the jerky and other meat snack products it has added in the last 20 years have become some of the biggest sellers. Edgar and Shirley Wuennecke, 71 and 70, have owned the business since 1958. Edgar still occasionally works at the store, but it's mostly run by their son Alan Wuennecke, 39, and his wife, Kelley, 37. Alan and Kelley eventually will become the fifth generation of their family to own the meat market.

August Peters started the meat market about 1880, said Shirley, who is the family historian. Her great-grandfather, Christopher Meyer, bought it in 1882. His son, Fredrick Meyer, bought it in 1886 and built the current two-story brick building in 1906. Then came Fredrick's sons, Albert (Shirley's father), Paul and Sigurd Meyer, and then Edgar and Shirley Wuennecke.

"We get customers from everywhere from Minneapolis to Chicago to Cedar Rapids, Iowa," Kelley Wuennecke said. "A lot of them make a special trip here, and say they can't find meat as good as we have." Some of their out-of-town customers own summer cabins along the Mississippi River, Shirley said. And some have discovered the meat market during a leisurely drive up the Iowa and Minnesota side of the river, and then down the Wisconsin side. "I'd say 75 to 85 percent of our customers are from out of town," Alan said. "Quite a few" are from La Crosse, which is 30 miles to the north. New Albin is on Hwy. 26, just south of the Iowa-Minnesota border. "Their summer sausage is some of the best," James Barry of North Hills, Calif., said last week when he and his wife, Kay, stopped at City Meat Market. The Winona, Minn., native and his wife, who grew up in Harpers Ferry, Iowa, stop at the store when they return to the area to visit relatives. "We come here every chance we get," James said. "It's a nice little store."

The meat market's biggest sellers include bologna, jerky and pepperoni sticks, Alan said. "We sell about 500 pounds of bologna a week," he said. "We've kind of had to change with the times" over the years, Alan said. "The younger clientele is more into the jerky and (pepperoni) snack sticks as opposed to older people eating liver sausage. It's pretty hard to sell liver sausage to people under 50." Some of the meat market's homemade products are sausage, summer sausage, kopfwurst, dried beef, tongue loaf, bratwurst and several kinds of jerky. The store's three main jerky varieties are beef, hot beef and pork. City Meat Market also sells two popular types of specialty jerky: turkey tenders, a smoked turkey tenderloin that's eaten as a snack food, and chicken jerky. The Wuenneckes do their own smoking in the smoke-house just behind the meat market. They use hickory wood. The Wuenneckes buy boxed fresh meat and cut their own steaks. Other meats include pork steak, pork chops, beef roast, picnic ham and luncheon meats. The market buys premium products. "When people come here, they want the good beef," Alan said. "They can buy lesser-grade beef elsewhere. We try to keep with the higher quality."

Many other businesses have vanished from New Albin during the meat market's 120-year history. When Edgar and Shirley took over the business in 1958, Edgar said, "We had four grocery stores and five taverns. Now we're down to two of each," including the meat market and the Main Street Market grocery store. The community also had two hardware stores and a lumber yard when Edgar and Shirley took over, but those, too, are gone. New Albin's population has stayed about the same, but fewer people live on farms and more people are shopping at large stores in La Crosse and other cities. "In this town, you're either retired or you work in La Crosse," Alan said. "Although some people work in Lansing." Still, the meat market has survived for 120 years. "It's not hard (to survive) if you're willing to work," Kelley said. "We have always done all right," Shirley said. "We haven't become millionaires. "We're still here," she said. "So many people stop by and say 'We heard you went out of business 10 years ago,'" she said, laughing.

~La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, WI, May 15, 2000
~contributed by Errin Wilker

Scott

[iceman]

That is such a neat read. We sure miss the old shops they had up in Alaska 40 years ago. Best sausage and specialty meats you could ever ask for. Old timers passed away and the kids had no interest in the shop so they let them close up.  :'(
Glad we have the Bradley family and all the sharing going on  :D
Kind of nice once in awhile to hear from us old farts and get the original recipes.  ;D

[cobra6223]

Thanks Scott and I hope this finds you June doing well ans staying warm,Karen always talks about you two and how we should get down there and visit. Funny I live 11 miles from that store and know it and the family very well but had never seen that story. ICEMAN you are right old farts are the best.

[ragweed]

How very cool!  Gonna have to find a way to go there.  Maybe if Chris has another smoke out, we could take a side trip.  Thx Scott for posting the story and thx Tim for getting it started.