Polish Sausage

Polish sausage shares space on the menu of many of Chicago’s red hot (hot dog) vendors. Made not of beef, but pork, it is like a lascivious hot dog, bigger and swollen with juice, cooked on a griddle and (at Byron’s Dog Haus) basted with hot fat from the fryolator. In another realm altogether, Polish sausage makes frequent appearances at barbecue parlors of the Southwest, where its role is not as a hot dog alternative, but as one of several pit-cooked meats on the menu. Kielbasa, which refers to any kind of sausage in Poland, is a name that U.S. eaters reserve for smoked sausages.