By LENA MAGEE
The Westside Express
On March 20, the students of the agricultural food science program and MAC’s Meat Market at Los Banos High School (LBHS) will hold their first-ever sausage tasting.
All LBHS staff, district office, board members, assistant and vice principals are invited to attend the tasting, which will run from 12:20 to 1:50 p.m. outside of room 13 at the high school.
Attendees will have the opportunity to taste 11 types of sausage, including linguica, Italian red ropes, Italian red fine grind, breakfast, Cajun, andouille, jalapeno cheesywurst, Polish, chicken parmesan, Mexican chorizo and snack sticks.
The sausages will be paired with cheeses, breads and other condiments selected and prepared by the students to complement each sausage. Each sausage will also be accompanied by a card explaining its formulation.
Sausages are primarily made from pork, except for the chicken parmesan and the 50-50 pork and beef snack sticks. All sausages are made with USDA-inspected meats.
MAC’s Meat Market, a student-created and student-run store catering to LBHS staff, will also have sausages and MAC’s Meat Market merchandise available for purchase.
LBHS agricultural instructor Stuart McCullough, who teaches agricultural food science classes, shared that the idea for the sausage tasting came from the concept of wine tasting.
“We looked at wine tasting and thought we could do that with our sausage. We’ll do a formal event, present the sausage with bread and cheese pairings,” McCullough said.
The agriculture food science students are running the event from start to finish, both on the day of the event and in the preparations leading up to it.
“The students are involved in every aspect. The sausages are developed in class, and the students do everything: processing, grinding, taste-testing, preparing and packaging. They create literature and signage, too,” McCullough said.
In addition to making the sausage and preparing samples for the event, students will act as greeters and servers during the event.
“Students will get interpersonal experience, greeting guests and explaining products. We’ll have 10 to 11 stations, with kids at each to explain the sausages, with the formulations available, because I don’t think they need to be secret.
“Customer service experience, as well as hands-on preparation before the tasting. They’ll get the experience of seeing people with a smile on their face when they try one of your creations,” said McCullough.
All proceeds from the event will go back to the program.
