“Soon after I moved to Oak Park, somebody told me about the bratwurst. ‘Best in the city,’ they said. ‘Little store on Austin.’ I remember this because sausages imprint on my memory like trauma. I would be a vegetarian only if sausage were a vegetable. And so I tracked down this single-aisle grocery and butcher shop, Blue Ribbon Meat Market, opened by Dominic Savino in 1979 and now owned by his son Russ. The meats seem intended for soul cooking. Lots of chicken, ribs, smoked turkey, enormous meat ‘packages’ designed to feed large families, and every variety of sausage: Italian and Mississippi, lamb and green onion, andouille and Cajun — all homemade, all delicious. I’m trying to eat less meat these days, but I’ll always make an exception for a bright red Mississippi sausage from Blue Ribbon.” $3.99 a pound. 426 N. Austin Blvd.