You re not going to get these old-fashioned foods at chain grocery stores, Mertz said. People not from Pennsylvania don t know about this food. A pig stomach stuffed with his own smoked-sausage, potatoes and celery is one of his favorites. The pig stomach becomes crispy when cooked as it traps moisture inside making for a moist and flavorful stuffing, Mertz said. We sell the stomach itself already cleaned out and frozen, Mertz said.
Nobody wants to clean out the stomachs anymore.
Pig stomachs are just one of the familiar foods passed down from early Pennsylvania Dutch residents. We have older people coming in because they can t get these foods anywhere else, Mertz said. The butcher even mails orders of ring bologna to customers as far away as Alaska and California who crave the foods of their Pennsylvania heritage. Mertz s meats are unique in that the meats are smoked out back a long process that makes for hungry shoppers inside as the delicious odor permeates the tiny store. There are only a handful of us left in the state that smoke meat anymore, Mertz said.