Eldon R. Cutlip

Eldon learned the alluring craft of sausage making during a lifetime of handling meat in one form or another. His indoctrination began at an early age when he helped his grandparents turn the family hogs into all manner of cured meats and sausages. Later on, he boned beef in a packing house and worked in a commercial sausage kitchen just prior to becoming a journeyman meat cutter in his early 20's. Shortly after moving to Idaho ten years later, he and wife Karen, opened their own custom sausage kitchen during which time Eldon fine-tuned his meat curing skills.

His was a unique opportunity in that he had hundreds of willing customers eager to taste his samples. These same participants readily offered their analysis of his concoctions and had no qualms about letting him know when the samples were less than satisfactory. Opinions, good or bad, proved invaluable in his quest to build a personal archive of sausage formulas. Eldon and Karen made more than 200,000 pounds of wild game sausage and jerky during their tenure at South Fork Sausage.

Sausage And Jerky Makers' Bible Book

Eldon has been contemplating this text on one level or another for the last fifteen years, but each time he would get serious and begin to organize his notes, he would become side tracked by the reality that the head of a household's first responsibility is to his family and make sure the bills were paid. Hence the book would end up on the back burner for another year while he and Karen toiled at one business or another. Then about three years ago, Eldon's MS began to spiral out of control, and it became painfully obvious that it was now or never--the hour glass was suddenly on the bottom side of full. If he truly expected to write the book he had envisioned for so long, the time for procrastination was over. He needed to roll up his sleeves and tackle the keyboard head-on.

He did just that and planted his behind at his desk for ten to twelve hours a day, seven days a week, all the while fearing that he might not be able to finish the task before his disease got the best of him. The pain did worsen, so much so, in fact, that about midway through, he considered quitting the book altogether. However, the next morning as he was struggling to his socks on, he suddenly realized that the only reason he was so intent on getting dressed was so that he could get to the computer and resume work on the book. If he could muster up enough energy to make it to the desk, surely he could make it through another day. This awakening was like a second wind, and from that point forward, Eldon was unstoppable.He was determined to finish so that anyone, regardless of previous experience, could succeed at this amazing craft.