Buckwheat Cakes and Sausage

I’d be telling a lie if I said that I was raised on buckwheat pancakes, but sausage was a staple of my parent’s home, especially for breakfast. My grandparents Ray and Rebecca Rugg Miner had a farm near Indian Head, Pennsylvania. Granddad raised two hogs and a bull each year. Sausage was one of the products that were garnered from the two hogs.

My desire to eat sausage was almost quashed during my four years in the United States Navy. The quality of pork must have been minimal, because manufacturers relied heavily on spices to camouflage the taste. Sage was one of the spices that permeated the pork links. My first indoctrination to inferior flavored meat was in boot camp. Away from home and nervous, the cloying taste of sage caused me to avoid sausage for several years. By the time I returned home my grandfather Raymond Miner had passed away and so did the yearly ritual of butchering. That tradition passed into the annals of time and so did the flavor of Granddad’s farm-fresh sausage.

I can’t remember when I was introduced into the taste of buckwheat cakes. A person is either was raised on them or it is an acquired taste. The batter is created by using buckwheat flour, yeast, water, salt, and a bit of sugar. The aging of buckwheat batter begins a fermenting process that gives those pancakes a slightly sour taste. The amount of sourness depends on the time allowed for the leavening to work. The consistency of buckwheat batter is another ingredient of the cake’s flavor. Some restaurants serve thick buckwheat cakes like a regular pancake. The correct way is to fry the thin batter, like a hillbilly crepe. When it’s fried properly cakes looks like brown lace. If held up, light may shine through. The mention of these thin cakes, slathered in butter, and drenched in maple syrup makes my mouth water, and when paired with whole hog sausage, it’s enough to raise a true connoisseur up from the dead. The Ohiopyle Volunteer Fire Department celebrates this tradition each autumn with their October “Buckwheat and Sausage Festival.” Because the younger generation isn’t drawn by the sour pancakes, the recipe for the “all-you-can-eat” buckwheat cakes has become a bit less sharp. They also serve regular pancakes to cater to those who haven’t learned to appreciate the cakes’ unusual flavor.

This year I brought only some buckwheat cakes to a friend who is recovering from triple bypass heart surgery. He enjoys them…but no sausage. His doctor wouldn’t approve. The flavor of sausage at the Buckwheat Festival is reminiscent of sausage that I ate at Granddad Raymond Miner’s farm.