Cudighi sandwich, or the Yooper version of a Freddy

I certainly thought of the Freddy when I first read the detailed description of the Cudighi. The Cudighi is a patty of Italian sausage served on a hard roll with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, sometimes with grilled onions, peppers, and mushrooms, native to the upper peninsula of Michigan.¹ The Freddy, of course, is an Italian sausage patty served on a roll or baguette with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and grilled peppers, native to the far south side of Chicago. As I learned in the Chicago Reader’s recent Foods of the Midwest issue, there are similar, unfortunately named sandwiches native to Des Moines (the Guinea Grinder) and the Twin Cities (the Hot Dago) and probably in a ton of other places where people still think it’s OK to name things after derogatory terms for immigrant groups.

¹ The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is often called the UP, from which the term Yoopers is derived. The folks who live there are apparently not only OK with the term, they take pride in it.

So is the Cudighi just another version of the Freddy from farther north? Or maybe the Freddy is a Chicago version of the Cudighi? More likely these, the Guinea Grinder and Hot Dago are all just independently-developed variants of something we might generically call an Italian-American patty melt.

As you dig further in though, you’ll find minor differences. The Guinea Grinder, in typical Iowa fashion, appears to be more of a loose-meat version, with the sausage cooked in bulk and mixed into the red sauce. The Hot Dago combines the bulk sausage with beef, bread crumbs and seasonings to make a sort of meatloaf out of it. The Freddy uses a patty made from the fennel-heavy Chicago style of Italian sausage. The Cudighi though, uses a pretty specific and unique type of Italian sausage (also called Cudighi, a word that’s possibly descended from the Italian Cotechino sausage and the Italian word cotica from which that name is derived) that’s mostly only known in the UP (though there’s a similar type of sausage called Saltisa in areas of Wisconsin).

https://twitter.com/chibbqking/status/499984335022215169/photo/1

Every Cudighi sausage recipe I’ve found online has been identical, apparently copied from site to site. A poster on Chowhound says it sounds authentic. I modified it a bit to fit my personal sausage-making technique.

The resulting sausage was good, but I wouldn’t describe it as spicy the way the Wikipedia article does. Aromatic, for sure. Spicy, not so much. We tried it in pizza and spaghetti and enjoyed the results, but sandwiches were this sausage’s destiny.

First though, the mise en place. My first job was to make some tomato sauce. I started with some good canned tomatoes.

I put these in the blender with 3 cloves of garlic and a couple tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and blended the mixture smooth. Then I gently simmered it for a short time to reduce and concentrate flavors, adding some dried basil and some red pepper flakes (because if the sausage wasn’t spicy, by god I’d make the sauce spicy).

I sliced up some red and green bell peppers

as well as some onions and mushrooms

I cooked the onions and peppers together in one pan, and the mushrooms in another

I shredded some mozzarella and only then did I think to consult Youtube for sandwich prep techniques. Turns out shredding the mozz was a rookie mistake

Looks like the pros use sliced mozzarella. Oh well.

I’d been planning on grilling the sausage patties outdoors, but if a flattop grill is good enough for the real deal, an electric skillet should be good enough for my homemade version.

I cooked each patty until brown on one side, then turned them.

I added the shredded mozzarella to the top of each patty after the flip

Then I held the patties in a warm-to-hot oven, allowing the cheese to finish melting, before assembling each sandwich.

I used Turano French rolls, adding tomato sauce to the bottom bun (and the top one too if requested). My two younger sons Max and Ian requested the sandwich without the vegetables

But Damian, Mindy and I had ours with the works.

And the result?

Well, I liked each individual ingredient. The whole sandwich was a bit of a mess, and I wonder how they season their tomato sauce in the UP, if there’s a version that compliments the sausage better. Overall it was very tasty but didn’t quite gel.

All told, though, I think I’d rather just have a Freddy. So that’s what I did. I took a long lunch break one day, headed to 103rd Street in the Chicago neighborhood of Beverly, and met Mindy for lunch at Calabria Imports.

I don’t know if it’s because I like the style of sausage better, or whether that preference is merely familiarity. I don’t know if the proportions of the sandwich are better, or if Calabria makes a better tomato sauce than I did (though mine was pretty great) or uses better bread (very likely). I don’t know whether it’s the great house-made potato chips that it comes with. I don’t even know if it’s because I can order some giardiniera on the side.

The Freddy just… works, in a way that the Cudighi didn’t, at least the ones I made, at least for me.

Mindy had the equally good Stenger, a roll stuffed with Italian meatballs (or sausage), red sauce and provolone cheese, brushed with garlic butter.

I’m sure the UP is a delightful place. It looks beautiful and there are a ton of lighthouses along the shore of Lake Superior. Maybe sometime I’ll pay a visit and try a real Cudighi. Who knows, maybe some day I’ll throw good taste to the wind and try a Guinea Grinder or a Hot Dago. Until then, though, I’m more than happy with the sandwiches in Chicago.