Real men make sausages

Some of this is headed for the Christmas table, some for next summer's grill. Pizzeri and his friend Mario Castagna, who together began the tradition, have been gathering with their friends on the Saturday following Thanksgiving for five years.

Late November typically guarantees weather cold enough to store the 1,200 pounds of pork butt and shoulder outside, yet not so frigid that the outdoor rotisserie can't be fired up to cook two pork roasts for that day's supper.

In the group of friends, Pizzeri is the "ketta" king, Castagna the sausage expert. They're joined by their brothers, Frank Pizzeri and Walter Castagna. It was the Pizzeris' grandfather, Eddie Meomartino, who taught his children and grandsons how to make porkettas, a southern Italian specialty. The Pizzeris' father, Frank Sr., couldn't make it up from Florida this year, but family members "Uncle Bob" Meomartino and Frank Giacopello, Frank Pizzeri's father-in-law, are regulars. This year, Mario Pizzeri, 8, Frank's son, joined in as a porketta stuffer and garlic chopper.

Mario Castagna learned the sausage making from his late father, Dino, who came from Abruzzi, in central Italy.

The tasks at hand officially begin at dawn at Worcester's D'errico's Market, where 25 cases of meat were loaded into trucks. Most of the men contributed $150 towards the costs; each expects to take home about 220 links and three porkettas.

The walls, ceiling, and tables in the basement are covered with protective white plastic. Standing at one "cubing station" are Walter Castagna and Oliver Garnett, and sitting at a table are Bob Reed and Giacopello ("my back is 70, but my mind is 21," he says). The crew chops boneless butt into chunks. Dave Seale weighs a plastic tub filled with the meat -- 50 pounds is the target -- and then turns it out onto a table.

"We spread the meat flat so every piece gets hit with the spices," says George Grassey, a high school friend of Mario Castagna's and maker of the large pot of meatballs bubbling away on a propane stove nearby. (Meatball subs is the standard lunch of the day.)

The team defers to Castagna for seasoning each batch. For cheese and wine sausages, Castagna flings Parmesan, white wine, and crushed garlic over the meat. Grassey grabs a small handful, grinds it, and cooks it for a taste test.

"Needs a little more salt," offers one taster. The seasoned meat is fed into grinders. Here, Mario and his brother, Walter, demonstrate their skill. Agile fingers twist the casing every five or so inches to create a 15-foot coil of links, including two breakfast varieties and a batch of garlic and onion.

At the porketta station, Frank Pizzeri butterflies boneless shoulders and son Mario inserts generous amounts of chopped garlic into them. Each generation seems to know exactly how much salt, pepper, and ground fennel seed to use. Meomartino ties each roast with fatback to keep it moist for its four- to six-hour stay in the oven.

Pizzeri calls porkettas "guy" food because they're often featured at Italian-American clubs. "And the next day you don't smell that good," Pizzeri says.

The last station to get cracking is the packaging area, which by 1 p.m. can barely keep up. Christopher Sauer and Frank Giacopello, who left cubing to help here, use vacuum sealers to encase the food in plastic. "You can't skimp on the packaging, otherwise the food won't keep well," says Jeff Pizzeri. Sauer keeps a running tally of varieties on a laptop computer.

This is no amateur operation. Half the guys know proper food handling from restaurant work. When the day is over -- one year it was 2:00 a.m. but Grassey says they "had too much meat and too few guys" -- there's time to barter. "If a guy doesn't like the sweets, he'll trade them for more hots or vice versa," says Pizzeri.

The day takes its toll. "Every year at the end of the day," says Sauer, "the guys swear they won't do it again. But they do."

Because when there are no more links for the summer grill, that cold Saturday in November can't come soon enough.