- EPISODE 1: PRINTING PRESS OPERATOR
- EPISODE 2: HAIRSTYLIST
- EPISODE 3: SUPERINTENDENT
- EPISODE 4: BUTCHER
- EPISODE 5: POLICE OFFICER
- EPISODE 6: ZOOKEEPER
- EPISODE 7: RESTAURANT OWNER
- EPISODE 8: TATTOO ARTIST
- EPISODE 9: BEEKEEPER
- EPISODE 10: POSTAL WORKER
- EPISODE 11: CRIME-SCENE CLEANER
- EPISODE 12: DOULAS
- EPISODE 13: USED-CAR DEALER
- EPISODE 14: CAREGIVER
EPISODE 4:
The Butcher
Sean Williamson works early in the morning to make sausage from scratch. After the meat is carefully mixed by hand, he stuffs the sausage into the natural casing.
Williamson's breakfast sausage is one of the most popular items at Liehs and Steigerwald. "You can try all the ones in the grocery store and you can make your own, or you can go to ya know Trader Joe's or Natur-Tyme and get the fancy stuff and I would take the Pepsi challenge against that any day with these," he says.
Williamson values the relationships he's built with regular customers. Here he works behind the counter, helping a customer with his order.
After the meat is stuffed into the casing, Williamson delicately links the meat.
Liehs and Steigerwald opened in 1936. "The neighborhood where we are located was mainly Italian and German immigrants until a few years back," Williamson says. "Everyone shopped here."
Episode 4: The Butcher
INTRO MUSIC: [Plodding bluesey guitar with organ accompaniment begins to play]
BRONTE SCHMIDT, HOST: Hello and welcome to Working: Syracuse, the podcast inspired by journalist Studs Terkel featuring Salt City residents talking about what they do to earn a paycheck and how they find meaning in those jobs. I'm your host Bronte Schmit. This episode reporter Jared Bomba visited Liehs and Steigerwald butcher shop on the northside of Syracuse. He spoke to Sean Williamson, who performs a number of roles including sausage-maker at the traditional German meat shop. The man who cuts, grinds, seasons, stuffs, and links that ground meat once studied to be a graphic designer. He enjoys the simple pleasure of feeding neighborhood families. But that doesn't mean he surrendered the artistic angst.
INTRO MUSIC: [Plodding bluesey guitar with organ accompaniment fades out]
SOUND: [Car driving past]
JARED BOMBA: At first glance the beige siding of the Liehs and Steigerwald butcher shop blends in with the other buildings on Grant Boulevard.
SOUND: [Door opening]
JARED BOMBA: The store's well-lit showroom features simple, wooden floors and a pair of gleaming glass cases that feature steaks, sausage, and other fresh meats. Behind those cases stand employees ready to cut, weigh, wrap and hand over tonight's entree. But in the back of the shop, where the meat is prepared, concrete floors, yellow tiling, and the whine of machinery make for a less-than-cheery setting.
SOUND: [Rising whine of the sausage stuffer]
SEAN WILLIAMSON: I was kinda very anxiety ridden in my teens and 20s, so like I bongled a shot at an art degree and I went to community college which was a joke. It was like the easiest thing you could possibly do. You get a 4.0 there and you go "OK, I'm gonna keep going to school!" So, I keep going to school and I just realized... I'm bored... I was just bored all the time. I wanted to just be doing.
JARED BOMBA: In the dim light, Williamson's beard, black hood and black cap give his wiry frame a forbidding air.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: My name is Sean Williamson, I'm 33 years old, I'm a butcher, a sausage maker, a manager, and also a cleaning guy here at Liehs and Steigerwald. I kinda do everything.
JARED BOMBA: Sean may be the linchpin at Liehs and Steigerwald now, but this was not the career he set out for after high school.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: What honestly happened is I went to school for a long time and realized that academia wasn't for me. I became a cook and realized that that was the most rewarding thing I had ever done. Feeding people good stuff and, ya know, using your hands, it was a lot more rewarding.
JARED BOMBA: Simply put, Williamson found greater fulfillment making something that would nourish bodies.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: It was just more realistic. I mean getting up, working a 50-hour week and ya know going to work with your hands using quality stuff and making stuff that I know is going to feed people and they're gonna be happy and it's gonna make memories for them, it just was more... more direct—direct way, to make my hard work worth something to me.
JARED BOMBA: This value is even greater because Liehs and Steigerwald is a small outfit. Williamson directly knows the people that he is serving.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: Well, ya know, it's like, I'm their butcher. It's like, if you ever watch the Brady Bunch, and like Alice would go to the butcher and be like "Hey Sam, I need my meat package!" And ya know hawk the bag over the counter and everything she ordered should be in there. (crackle) It's literally that.
SOUND: [friendly conversations taking place in the shop]
SEAN WILLIAMSON: You know out of 100 people that walk in the doors, you know 50 of them by name. It's just, it's a little more human to me than... spinning the wheels of someone else's cog, it's ya know? I might be spinning the wheel of a few people's cog, but it's just more rewarding, yeah. There's more heart in it for sure.
JARED BOMBA: The pride he takes in producing a high-quality product is evident. But the whole process starts by looking more than like baking than butchering. He is elbow-deep in a bucket of minced pork shoulder.
SOUND:[Williamson mixing meat in bucket]
SEAN WILLIAMSON: And I'm just looking to achieve a bind. Adding a little bit of water in there essentially just kinda makes that fat smear a little bit, so that ground meat is now almost like a dough. I can pick it up and have it hold itself together.
SOUND: [Williamson putting the meat into stuffer]
JARED BOMBA: He drops the meat in the stuffer and washes out the casings before fixing the casing on the horn. Soon the crispy crackling of the ground meat fills the casing like strawberry toothpaste into a clear sleeve.
SOUND: [Machine sounds]
SEAN WILLIAMSON: Now the other ones you saw me partition, this I go a little longer because we're just essentially linking this. I'll just link it as long as I can go.
SOUND: [More meat mixing sounds]
MUSIC: [Sobering bass drum fades in]
JARED BOMBA: After the casing is full, he moves over on the bench and begins tying off the ends of the links. Minutes later, another variety is finished and ready to head out into the display case.
MUSIC: [Sobering bass drum fades out]
JARED BOMBA: Williamson's work life is not as simple as stuffing meat into a casing, though. As with many jobs, the thrill has faded.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: I know my customers because they come in and they wanna get stuff from me, but it's just like anything else, once you learn it and you've done it for 20 thousand hours, it just becomes another day. I mean it's just like anything else you get numb to. It's still valuable and it still means something but it's not like you rest with your hands under your pillow smiling at night going "oh I helped all the" ya know it's just, it's just like anything else. After a while, it's just a gig man. It is a grind in every sense of the word.
MUSIC: [Sobering bass drum fades in]
JARED BOMBA: There is also a real physical strain, and minor injuries are common. But even when he avoids accidents, it is not comfortable work.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: So you end up with sore shoulders, sore back, a lot of scars on your hands. And actually in this kinda work with a lot of cold and water, the blood vessels actually recess in your fingertips. So like if I was to cut the tip of my finger, it may not even bleed just because blood simply doesn't travel there anymore.
JARED BOMBA: And beyond all of that, after eight years, there is boredom.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: So it's just this over and over again. The repetition is really the thing that gets to you after a while with this job because nothing really changes, it's the same thing every day. I do the same motions until the bench is empty of meat, every time.
JARED BOMBA: The store faces an uncertain future as well. In an age of big-box stores, specialty butchers can have a hard time competing.
SOUND: [Machine sounds]
SEAN WILLIAMSON: Ya know, people can spend two dollars a pound on things, but they're not necessarily spending five or six dollars a pound on things. So, in the long term unless this city turns around and something crazy happens where business moves back in, people move back in, we have a customer base, and that customer base is going to remain the same. So if people don't pass it down to the next generation, no one is going to know that we even exist. We have people in this neighborhood that say, "Oh man, I've lived here for 15 years and never knew you guys were there."
JARED BOMBA: Williamson does not plan to do this forever, though. He studied art history in college, and growing up he had different dreams that have to date gone largely unfulfilled.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: I, I illustrate. I actually did a lot of graphic design work freelance for a lot of years when I was living in the basement of my grandfather's house taking care of him. Ya know, a couple businesses around Syracuse actually still use my logos. I've done a couple things for Oswego County. Um, I still draw every day. But it's secondary now and if I ever got an opportunity to ya know, monetize that, I'd drop this in a heartbeat because that's my true passion. But right now this pays well, this pays the bills, and it affords me the life I want to live so can't really knock it one way or another.
JARED BOMBA: So this isn't his ideal job. He isn't making a living on his own art right now. But the creative outlet of cooking still beats studying the work of famous artists in a dusty library.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: It's not my passion but it's become my passion out of necessity. I guess is a way to put it. I'm giving it my all, I'm not just coming in here and "oh fuck I'm making sausage man." It's not like that. It's, there's still reward to it, it's still nice to come in and make good stuff.
MUSIC: [Sobering bass drum fades in]
JARED BOMBA: To some people, that will sound like giving up on a dream. To others it may sound like making the best of his current situation. Either way, it has been hard on Williamson. He admitted that over time he has developed a pretty negative outlook on the world.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: That's just happened, not necessarily because of the nature of the job, it's just happened because of the state of things externally maybe, maybe just myself. You're better off than seeing things realistically than thinking everything is sunshine and rainbows and, ya know. And you still go out there and you try to be a good human being to everyone you see and everybody you interact with, even if, ya know, your outlook is bleak it doesn't mean you're bleak.
JARED BOMBA: So there lies the value of his work – it's not perfect, but it lets him shine a little light on the world.
SEAN WILLIAMSON: Being a good human, I mean that's all that's gonna matter, whatever you're doing. Whatever you're doing. You just gotta keep that in perspective. It doesn't matter your schooling, it doesn't. You could be 16 years old washing dishes. It doesn't matter what you do. And I guess the point is, there's no real point. It's just- it's just doing it. And make some sausage. Make some good stuff to feed to people.
BRONTE SCHMIDT, HOST: Thanks Jared. We should have a barbecue soon and try some of those sausages. And for those who want a bit of insight into Sean's personality, I suggest checking out his Twitter bio @Seanzillatron, where he lists "nihilism, nerd shit, and red meat" as his interests. That sounds about right.
OUTRO MUSIC: [Plodding bluesey guitar with organ accompaniment begins to play]
BRONTE SCHMIDT, HOST:That's all for this episode of Working: Syracuse. Check out our website www.workingsyracuse.com for more interviews and extra content about Sean. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @WorkingSyracuse. The episode was written and produced by Jared Bomba with help from Yerin Kim, Katie Cohen, and Peter Benson. Our theme music is by Logan Piercy. I'm your host Bronte Schmit, and it's time for us to clock out.
OUTRO MUSIC: [Plodding bluesey guitar with organ accompaniment fades out]
On this episode of Working: Syracuse, we speak to Sean Williamson of Liehs and Steigerwald on Grant Boulevard. Williamson didn't set out to be a butcher. In fact, it took years of college as an art major and thousands of tuition dollars before he decided to pursue something with more immediate, tangible results. That desire led him to his job making sausage for a specialty butcher shop, a position he's held for almost a decade. Williamson's job description includes being the butcher, manager and general everyman at Liehs and Steigerwald, which has served Syracuse's Northside community for more than 80 years.
Williamson oversees the original Northside shop as owners Jeff Steigerwald (grandnephew of founder Ludwig Steigerwald) and Chuck Madonna (a long-time L&S employee) focus on a new location in downtown Syracuse. Williamson takes pride in the countless dishes prepared for Northside families and the relationships he's developed with customers. As the owners strive to make the business relevant amid rising competition from national retailers, Williamson seeks to make his way through a love-hate relationship with his job. It delivers a satisfaction derived from connecting with people and fulfilling a universal and basic need, but it also offers physical discomforts and a repetition that can quite literally be a grind.