Because of strict controls on the import of foods, Hungarians living in the US and Canada are starved of home-made Hungarian meat products, unless they can ask a friend or relative to play meat mule and smuggle their pungent cargo through US customs. It can be done, but officials are wise to the practice - it is said they even know the words szalonna and kolbász. So it is safer to make your own disznótoros yourself or source cured meat products from a US-based supplier. The number one local smoker is Bende's Specialty Foods Direct, a Hungarian mail order company that runs its own factory and outlet store in Vernon Hills, just to the north of Chicago. I paid them a visit to find out exactly what is on offer to paprika-starved Hungarian expats.

The Bende brand is known to most Hungarians living in the US, and many more expats from the former eastern bloc - with which Hungary exchanged salami and sausages for Trabants and Ladas. According to Miklós Bende, who runs the business, the small meat processing plant and outlet store in the Chicago sprawl could not live on Hungarian custom alone. Today, nostalgic Czech, Russian, German and Polish immigrants all flock to the remote store, as I found out on a recent visit. In addition to the Bende family's own products ranging from meat to lecso and jam, the "mini mall" stocks a wide variety of mostly German snacks and treats, as well as a selection of traditional Hungarian brands like Tibi chocolate.

"Bendy's", as Miklós Bende calls the company when taking orders on the phone, began life when Miklós the elder, who fled Miskolc in 1956 when his son was just nine years old, took little Miklós to Indiana to buy pigs, before curing and selling them on the street in the Hungarian Burnside enclave of Chicago. It was half a decade later that the butcher's store on Montrose and Lincoln opened and made the Bende brand famous throughout Chicagoland. But it was only in 1970, following a stint running a motel in Florida, that Miklós and Júlia were convinced by junior to return to Chigaco to set up a Hungarian meat business in earnest. Before long, the family enterprise - all four grandchildren are now involved - had outgrown itself, resulting in the move to the quiet suburb of Vernon Hills.

To simplify logistics, Bende Inc. only manufactures products with a shelf life exceeding a year, such as traditional téli szalámi (winter salami), paprika-rich Csaba salami, spicy kolbász and szalonna (smoked ham comprising an unhealthy amount of delicious fat), for delivery to households and markets throughout the US and Canada. "We leave it up to the Germans produce fresher products, such as párizsi and virsli [Hungary's answer to the Frankfurter]," he explains. And although he insists the methods of curing the meats has not changed, the family has been forced to adhere to increasingly strict USDA standards. for example, this is why products made in the Pick factory in Szeged are not exported to the States, Miklós explains, and why we were unable to take a peak into the the plant itself.

In addition to the burgeoning meat business, Bende also imports a variety of jams, pickled vegetables and their own variety of lecso for sale under the Bende brand. "We return to Tihany once a year. Although doing business in Hungary is not always easy, we have built up close relations with fruit growers and suppliers," he says.

One thing conspicuously absent from the shelves of the Bende store is a decent selection of liquor, including Unicum and particularly pálinka. Unfortunately, the recent pálinka renaissance in Hungary does not seem to have reached the States, where Zwack's Pecsétes brand of fruit brandy is all that is available alongside second-rate staples like Hubertus. Under EU law, the caramel added to the apricot liquor would preclude this product from ever being labeled pálinka, which must be made exclusively from Hungarian fruit without added sugar or flavouring. This is a real shame - the emerging array of high-quality pálinka is even more worthy of international acclaim than Hungary's top wines. According to Miklós Bende, the Unicum problem lies with Diageo, the international drinks giant with exclusive distribution rights of Zwack products. "Zwack recently launched a new version of Unicum for the American market and so our source of traditional Unicum dried up," Bende laments, adding that his customers' complaints are as bitter as the drink itself.

If I am honest, my verdict of Bende's, both the salami - good but not great - and the store itself, is tarnished by the fact that I was on vacation from the old country. Why get excited about a couple of sticks of szalámi, when there are hundreds to see and smell at any of Budapest's markets? The same applies to the lacklustre selection of food and wine - although this reflects more on the red tape at US customs than on the Bende empire. Still, it is reassuring to know that Eastern Europeans stranded across the water do have somewhere to turn when salami stocks run low.