SRODEK’S CAMPAU QUALITY SAUSAGE COMPANY
An old-school sausage and dry goods market in the heart of Hamtramck, Srodek’s Campau Quality Sausage Co. (9601 Jos. Campau, Hamtramck, 313/871-8080) is everything that the small, family-run corner store should represent.

The hardworking Srodek family, including father Joe, daughter Maggie and son Rodney, work the intimate store six days a week, producing their own sausage which is incomparable. Joe attributes this to the family recipe, including quality meat, but also to his smoking techniques. Smoked in-house in a pair of gargantuan commercial smokers, the true flavor-enhancer of the product, the wood, is the highest quality apple and cherry wood.

Superlatives include veal and pork krajana, polendwica (Canadian bacon), zoberka (smoked spare ribs), kiska, and a number of highly regarded Polish specialties that Americans may find a bit surprising: jellied pig’s feet and ozorki (tongues in jelly).

Rounding out the store’s inventory, besides the wide array of Polish and Eastern European products, is homemade pierogi in twelve varieties, both sweet and savory, and seven types of homemade soups.

The Srodek children, Maggie and Rodney (Americanized versions of their Polish names) came to the United States as children, but retain the language, still spoken in the home. That makes it equally convenient for shoppers fluent in one language or the other.

With a hundred years of family history tied up the shop, Srodek’s remains a quaint, vital and high-quality link to the past; the personal service that in this era of the mega-mart, is so sorely missed.