Uncle John's Pride: country style sausages from Tampa

Some Florida grocers carry select items in the Uncle John's Pride product line.
I haven't found a better sausage plant based in Florida. And outside of a few regional shops that sell only to customers in their neighborhood, I suspect there isn't one.

Uncle John's Pride comes from Crofton and Sons Inc. in Tampa, Fl. This is also home to the Bean Brothers, L & D Meats, and the Peppino's Fresh Sausage brands - none of which I have tried, yet.

The Crofton family has been making Uncle John's Pride for over 30 year. In 1994, Bean Bros. merged with Crofton and Sons, bringing into the company a brand that had been made since 1922 from an old Tennessee family recipe.

Uncle John's Pride is a hickory smoked pork sausage that comes in mild, hot, and jalapeno. The Croftons also offer smoked pork tails, neck bones, hocks, and smoked turkey wings and drumsticks.

I don't know of any grocer, however, that carries their full product line. Publix will carry some of them.

I purchased a Mild Country sausage, and  it turned out to be a fairly good buy. The ground pork appears to be extruded finer than Texas-style sausages, which are generally chunkier. But it's not as fine or homogenous as, say, a hotdog. They've settled somewhere in the middle where the meat still has a slightly coarse texture, but it is more tender when chewed.

There are two simple meals shown here. One is a sampler-style dinner plate of baked beans with lightly grilled sections of sausage, and very lightly grilled sections of sweet red pepper and yellow onion.

I'm a fan of grilled onion, but if you're not, switch that out with some other veggie. There's no bread or rice with this. I figured the baked beans have more than enough carbs as it is.

The second plate is a breakfast plate that uses the sausage as a traditional meat side to the main entree, a serving of pancakes. These pancakes have an unusual color and texture because I added graded carrot to the batter.

It's topped with nectar from the agave, a healthy substitute for honey from bees.

The mild hickory smoked sausage really does make an excellent breakfast sausage. We usually get served breakfast patty sausages that have a strong (I would say overpowering) sage flavor. I do recommend you give it a try, if it is available in your area.

Enjoy!