Safety Harbor sausage shop brings taste of Hungary to the hungry

Through the parking lot's chain-link fence and past the planters with flowers and shrubs, a red doorway leads you into the quaint First Quality Sausage House.

One step inside and the pungent aroma of paprika, garlic and smoked meats grabs your nostrils and refuses to let go.

In the glass case is a carnivore's dream: Tempting homemade frankfurters, knockwurst and bratwurst. Plump rolls of Kassler liverwurst ground in-house to two different types of smoothness. Blond links of weisswurst made with fresh veal. Blood and tongue sausage and head cheese. A giant slab of sulze with vinegar, that looks like a block made with edible Legos.

These are foods that went out of style for years as immigrants assimilated into American culture. They've returned to favor with butcher shops and meat stores coming back in vogue in recent years.

On top of the store's showcase sit fresh-baked pastries and breads. The wheat bread is a robust, multigrain attack on the senses.

Behind the counter, owner Anikó Rákóczi is the very definition of constant movement, filling orders, wrapping meats, shuffling racks of dangling sausages and kielbasa in and out of giant smoker boxes. They don't hang on the rack long. Customers can't get enough of the flavor.

Her sister, Enikõ Curiel, works quietly in the back on a pile of dough, kneading and pulling and stretching, then spreading bacon bits into the mix. Once rolled out and trimmed with deep-set biscuit cutters, the dough will become a sheet of tasty, flaky biscuits called tepertős pogácsa . Rows of them baking in the oven fill the air inside the store with a savory pork aroma.

A few blocks away, shoppers stroll and dine along popular Main Street before stopping for a day of pampering at the Safety Harbor Resort & Spa.

But here on 9th Avenue North, tucked in an industrial area and just across the street from a railroad line, Rákóczi's store is a hidden jewel known only to those who crave Hungarian flavors, or motorists who find it accidentally. For them, First Quality is an oasis from the predictable grocery store meat counter.

It's Friday, so Rákóczi is crazy busy keeping customers happy. They know that it's the day she makes a giant pan of tepertő , crispy Hungarian fried bacon seasoned with paprika. She tries to keep bags of it ready for sale, but they usually go faster than she can package them.

Rákóczi, 55, has been making the sausages and meats and Hungarian delights since she bought the store in 2003 from George Hudak, who operated it as Quality Sausage House for 20 years.

Looking to sell, he asked Rákóczi to make an offer. She had been a customer of his for more than 20 years and the two of them bonded. Both had escaped Communist Hungary, he in 1958 and she in 1982. Both had a love for food. He picked Rákóczi's offer over several others who promised more money, then gave her his recipes and stayed to show her how it was done.

"He called them his babies," she says in a broken accent. "He said I would keep his babies alive."

Growing up on a farm in Magyarbóly, Hungary, Rákóczi learned about smoking and curing meats and making sausages for her family. She loved entertaining friends at home. She figured this was another way to entertain and get paid for it.

"You have to love [making sausages] because it's 24/7," she says.

Anikó's daughter, also named Anikó, says when she was growing up, news of her mother's cooking would spread through the neighborhood.

"I'm living there, and I'm fighting over getting something to eat because there were so many people there, eating all the goulash," she says.

Making subtle changes

Rákóczi tweaked Hudak's recipes to the way she knew from her hometown. She is the only one who knows the recipes. Not even her sister or daughters know the full ingredient list.

Her recipes were among the only things she brought when she and her then-husband, Csaba Olah, escaped Hungary in August 1982 with their small daughters. The couple sold everything they owned, converted the money into gaudy, 24-carat jewelry and hid it in the axle of their carThey crossed the Austrian border, telling guards they were going camping. Instead, they drove to a refugee camp, where they stayed for two weeks before getting visas. They had a choice of Sweden or Tampa. They chose Tampa and moved with help from a Baptist church sponsor.

Rákóczi started cleaning houses. Eventually, she saved enough money to buy a stake in the sausage shop, with financing help from Hudak.

"Europeans love to eat," she says. "If you're happy, you eat. If you're sad, you eat. That's what they do. They don't mind to spend on good food."

Making it her own

Along with small changes in the recipes, Rákóczi transformed the shop into more of a Hungarain haven than a store.

Magazines and tchotchkes from the home country decorate one wall. Along another, shelves are stocked with candies, cookies and containers of Eastern bloc food. A jar of lesco - a mixture of stewed peppers, onions and tomatoes - is ready to add to a Hungarian feast.

The map of Hungary hangs in a nearby hallway. In the corner, a TV broadcasts a cheesy looking Hungarian game show. "My mom bought this crazy cable package with thousands of channels, just so she could get the one Hungarian channel," Anikó says. "She doesn't really care to watch it. It's more to make it feel like home for the customers."

Her dedication to flavors of home has paid off in a dedicated base of customers, including some who drive from as far as Georgia to stock their freezers. One customer called from Alaska to have sausage mailed to her for Christmas.

"The shipping is crazy," Rákóczi says. "But she told me it's not Christmas without your sausage. I need your sausage. I said, 'You sure? The shipping is 100 something dollars.'

"She say, 'Yes, I'm sure.'."

Rákóczi explains each meat to customers in full detail. Every bite, she knows, is a taste of home.

"It's not just her talking about how much it costs," her daughter says. "She'll talk to you about how she makes it or why it's relevant to Hungarian or Polish culture. "For Eastern European people, when they find a store, there's an emotional connection."

RAKOTT KRUMPLI(Potato Kolbasz Casserole)

3 pounds potatoes, boiled whole

6-8 hard-boiled eggs

2 pounds smoked sausage (your choice)

2 onionsButter/Canola oil

1 16-ounce container ricotta cheese

1 16-ounce container sour cream

Garlic salt

Garlic powder

Pepper

Seasoned salt

Grated cheddar cheese

Boil potatoes whole and peel when cooled. Set aside.

Boil eggs. Peel and set asideIn a bowl, mix ricotta cheese with a generous amount of garlic powder and some garlic salt.

Lightly drizzle the bottom of a roasting pan with oil. Slice and saute onions in butter or margarine until they are transparent.

Slice potatoes and place them in the roaster until they just cover the bottom. Spread some of the sautéed onions on top of the potato layer.

Drop spoonfuls of the ricotta cheese mixture over the onions and potatoes, then drop spoonfuls of the sour cream in alternating drops where there is no ricotta.

Slice kielbasa cross-ways in circles. Cover the entire layer of cheese and sour cream with kielbasa slices.

Repeat layers until all is gone, with potatoes serving as the top layer.

Place in 375-degree Fahrenheit oven and bake for 1 hour. Remove from oven and sprinkle cheddar cheese on top and place back into the oven for 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.