May I introduce the Renaissance Sausage truck, the sketch of a jaunty cutlass on the side, neatly skewering an airborne sausage.
This is not quite as thrilling as the Wienermobile. But at the curbside - say, on Thursdays, at the afternoon farmers market that sets up at 22d and Fairmount - pulses quicken at the sight; the truck is peddling the latest in happier meals, sausages bursting with local and seasonal and organic goodness.
Take your pick from the blackboard menu - the rather tame Asian number, its loosely ground chicken sourced from Eberly Poultry's free-range, organic birds in Lancaster County, topped off with a crunchy, mango slaw; or the Mediterranean job, pastured lamb from Jamison, the world-class producer in Latrobe, Pa., nicely set off with fresh hummus and tangy-tahini-dressed cucumber, red onion, and feta salad; or a Veggie contender, full of beans and wheat protein and local produce and herbs that Renaissance owner Dan Semko often barters for, trading his sandwiches (on Wild Flour rolls baked in Holmesburg) for the bounty of Pennsylvania Dutch farmers at various weekly farm markets.
He offers, as well, the ubiquitous Italian pork (from Leidy's in Harleysville) sausage, informed with fennel. But if I'm after Italian pork sausage, frankly, it's hard to pass up the fuller-flavored links at Sonny D'Angelo's or Fiorella's on Ninth Street, or for that matter, the homemade pork sausage that butcher Paul Bovo grinds at the Narberth American Family Market.
Semko himself wasn't always a purist. He and his pal Bret Cavanaugh from his Lambertville days used to pay for their music festival weekends selling food out of the back of a 1974 VW bus.
