Carniolan Sausage (Kranjska klobasa) — the sausage that flew to space
'Slovenian Culinary Flag' (Slovenska kulinarična zastava (Mladina, 24. februar, 2007, naslovnica)) or 'Why would Engels ever claim that one cannot eat flags?!?'
»Slovenian history was created not only by politicians, poets, soldiers, diplomats, punk musicians, tycoons and other great men and some women here and there (for example, astronauts,) but also by an uncountable and unmanageable multitude of things, objects, gadgets, non-humans, among which the Carniolan sausage holds a most important, honorable position.«
Kranjsko klobasanje, Jernej Mlekuž
Pork, bacon with added sodium nitrite garlic, pepper, salt and pig’s intestine — these are the ingredients for the Carniolan sausage. One would ask — what is all the fuss about? And yet, the Carniolan sausage with its characteristic aroma of seasoned and smoked pork, has been playing an important role in shaping and developing the Slovenian national consciousness ever since 1848, the springtime of peoples. During that time the ‘Zedinjena Slovenija' or the ‘United Slovenia' movement strove to unite the different Slovenian-speaking provinces of the Austro-Hungarian empire into a united single kingdom under the rule of the Habsburgs, and fought for the equality of the Slovenian language in public. They also opposed the planned integration of the Habsburg monarchy with the German Confederation. The main reason for this opposition was that they were afraid that the Slavs in the Habsburg Empire would have even less influence in how the empire was run, since they would have been more easily overruled by the German majority. In reference to that we have the first written record of the Carniolan sausage, which dates back to 1849. It appeared in a Ljubljana newspaper called ‘Slovenija’ in an article ‘Election to Frankfurt.' The United Slovenia movement opposed sending representatives to Germany despite calls from the Austrian government to go and vote in order for Austrian interests to be represented. And for the interests of the Carniolan sausage to be represented as it turns out. The authors of the piece discuss the prospect of joining the German confederation and mock the arguments for why that would help Slovenians. One of these is that the glory of the Carniolan sausage would reach all the way to Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost German state.
An excerpt from the first article mentioning the Carniolan sausage.
Not everyone was equally excited about the culinary symbol of Slovenians; the famous Slovenian writer Fran Levstik found the name itself objectionable. Kranjska or Carniola was considered the most Slovenian of all provinces of the empire. They would not call their sausage Kranjska klobasa. One hypothesis is that the sausage was named by the Germans to identify it as the sausage that came from Carniola. So how could it be a symbol of the Slovenian nation if the name for it was given by the Germans?
How exactly the name came about is unclear, but according to legend, it was given by none other than Franz Joseph I when traveling from Vienna to Trieste. On the way he made a stop in Naklo to have something to eat. The owner of the restaurant told him that he doesn’t have anything but ordinary sausages. The emperor ordered a sausage, which was promptly served. While the landlord was nervously waiting, Franz Joseph I had his first bite. Very pleased, he exclaimed: ‘That is no ordinary sausage; that is Carniolan sausage!' As good as this sounds, it cannot possibly be true. The first mention of the Carniolan sausage dates back to 1849, to the time before Emperor Franz Joseph I visited Carniola.
Despite some vocal critics, the Carniolan sausage came to be seen as typically Slovenian in the early years of nation-building. For example, in the following passage from a travel book titled ‘A student’s journey to Prague' by an anonymous author (1907), one reads »I stared melancholically across the green plains and hills that lined up before my eyes. Enjoy the view, eyes, I thought, it won't be here for much longer — the beautiful Gorenjska disappears as we approach Rožna Valley and the homeland is left behind. Then enters the foreign world of the planes, and only far above the Danube it smells more like home again. To any honest Carniolan, the plane is what dry land is to fish. But merely the thought of Carniolan sausages and black teran [wine, author’s note] chased away all of those gloomy thoughts for a moment. '«
In a historical reenactment in Naklo, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria tries his first bite of the Carniolan sausage (photo by Tina Dokl). Read more about the reenactment here.
Another Slovenian who didn’t want to part with Carniolan sausages upon leaving his homeland was the blessed Anton Martin Slomšek (1800-1862), the first Slovenian ever to be proclaimed blessed. In his recollections about the pilgrimage to Rome, he writes: »By the way, I should add that the baggage inspection in Pontebi caused us no problems whatsoever, even though we were afraid for our Carniolan sausages and other meats. We moved all of these from our bindles to our pockets, as pockets are supposedly never checked according to reliable sources.«
The oldest recipe for the Carniolan sausage dates back to 1896. It was collected by Katharina Prato when she was traveling around the Austrian Empire, and it was published in her cookbook ‘Süddeutsche Küche’. This is why many producers of Carniolan sausages proudly display ‘since 1896’ on their labels. The first recipe in Slovenian only appeared in 1912 in the 6th edition of ‘Slovenska kuharica’ by Felicita Kalinšek.
The Carniolan sausage outlived the Austro-Hungarian Empire and remained popular throughout the turbulent years of the Kingdom of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, renamed in 1929 to Kingdom of Yugoslavia. With World War II came the socialist revolution, and revolutions are a time when, according to Marx, ‘the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.’ It was a time when ‘Everything that reminded people of the achievements of previous eras, bourgeois and aristocratic values […], was suspicious and undesirable.’ One such tradition was also the Carniolan sausage, as Mlekuž observes in his ‘Kranjsko Klobasanje.’ Make no mistake, the Carniolan sausage was still enjoyed at gatherings, picnics, etc., but its reputation was diminished. When a travel journalist traveled around Slovenia at the beginning of the tourist season in 1968, she commented on the inadequacies of the Slovenian tourist offerings; in particular, according to her, in most of the restaurants she visited, the first thing she was offered were Carniolan sausages and schnitzels. She published her impressions in a newspaper article titled ‘Do not mention Carniolan sausages and schnitzels to me.’ To see just how many Carniolan sausages were eaten, consider this: throughout the tourist season the train station restaurant in Zidani Most sold the passengers so many Carniolan sausages that a chain made of them would be more than 14 km long — as one can read in an article from that period titled ‘14 km of sausages.’ As one can tell from this last title, the emphasis was not on the quality of the sausages, but rather the quantity; pork was often mixed with beef, more fat than necessary was added, etc. The Carniolan sausage became street food, fast food that preceded McDonalds and kept socialist stomachs full.
Two generations of Azman men gather around the butcher block table. Photo: Cleveland Historical.
If the Carniolan sausage was going through a tough time in Slovenia, that was not the case abroad. Emigrating Slovenians took the Carniolan sausage with them out into the world. Among the Slovenians and their descendants in the US after World War II it became simply the ‘Slovenian sausage’, with an annual festival dedicated to it that takes place in Cleveland (Polka Hall of Fame Slovenian Sausage Festival). Among German speakers, the Carniolan sausage is known as ‘Krainer Wurst’, while the Slovenian diaspora in Australia refers to it as ‘Kransky’.
Over time the Carniolan sausage made a comeback in its homeland. In the new millenium, it has been celebrated with a Carniolan sausage festival, which first took place in 2004. The pandemic made big gatherings impossible, so the last time it took place was in 2019.
a drawing by Tomaž Lavrič (Mladina, 16. december 2006, 17)
In the new millennium the Carniolan sausage (or rather Slovenian sausage) has also been where no Slovenian (excluding Americans with Slovenian roots) has ever been before. On December 10 2006, it was taken to space from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral on board of Discovery. With 28 318 km/h it also reached a record in being the fastest Carniolan sausage in history! In space it lasted until Christmas when it was enjoyed by members of the International Space Station. The person responsible for this achievement is Sunita Williams, an astronaut of Slovenian descent through her mother, Bonnie (Zalokar) Pandya. This is how Bill Ažman, the owner of a butcher shop in Euclid, Cleveland, remembers the events: »One day she [Bonnie] sent me a letter. In it she explained that her daughter is an astronaut named Sunita. She wrote that NASA allowed family members of astronauts to send Christmas gifts to the International Space Station. We want to send your sausages to Sunita. So we sent her a few packets of sausages and they ended up in space. The astronauts liked them very much; they ate everything. « Of course, NASA wanted to know exactly what was in the Carniolan sausage before sending it to space — the reason being that there are no doctors at the International Space Station, and if it happened to contain ingredients that any of the expedition members were allergic to, it could have ended badly.
Carniolan sausage on a stamp. Photo: UKOM archives
In part responsible for the rebirth of the Carniolan sausage in Slovenia was the Carniolan sausage association, GIZ Kranjska klobasa, founded in 2008. Largely due to their efforts, the Carniolan sausage was entered into the register of protected geographical indications in January 2015 as the twenty-second Slovenian product registered by the European Commission and the 11th to have a protected geographical indication. It took several years of negotiations to get there; the Austrians were worried that granting protected status to the Slovenian product would prohibit Austrians from selling their Osterkrainer, Käsekrainer, Schweinskrainer and other variations of the Carniolan sausage. The compromise was that Austrians may still use those names, but that only Slovenia may sell the Carniolan sausage or Krainer Wurst and translate it into other languages. With the register the size of the Carniolan sausage was determined; it had to be between 12 and 14 cm. Unfortunately, this entry invalidated the Guinness World Record for the biggest Carniolan sausage in the world. The so-called ‘Gulliver Carniolan sausage’ had a diameter bigger than a jumbo jet wheel; each half was 3.44 m long and it weighed a total of 520 kg. The only problem: the jumbo sausage cannot anymore be considered a Carniolan sausage — it was more than 14 cm long!
The old and the new meet in Kranjski burek.
The Carniolan sausage renaissance is also reflected in the numerous new ways in which it is served, for example in Kranjski burek. Burek is one of the most popular fast food dishes in Slovenia, even though it is a relative newcomer to the Slovenian food scene. It came from Yugoslavia in the sixties. In this new rendition, the standard cheese or meat filling is replaced by Carniolan sausage, sauerkraut and curd filling. Carniolan sausage is more than fast food, though — in 2011, a monograph by Dr Janez Bogataj titled ‘Masterpieces with Carniolan Sausage’ was published featuring recipes like caramelized Carniolan sausage with fresh fig ice cream. In 2013 the first Carniolan sausage restaurant, Klobasarna, opened its doors in Ljubljana. It offers the classical Carniolan sausage with horseradish and mustard as well as more modern dishes, like Carniolan sausage štruklji.
The Carniolan sausage is such a powerful symbol for Slovenians that these days one may even find in printed on socks or slocks (for Slovenian socks) (available here). Dr. Mlekuž, an author of multiple books on the Carniolan sausage, asked himself a key question: what would the Slovenian nation be like without the Carniolan sausage? ‘Significantly more feeble, flat, thin and uninteresting!’ Luckily, we do not have to worry about this. So let us end this note with the following little prayer from Venček domačih. Predmeti, Slovencem sveti:
Oh, Kranjska Klobasa, blessed are those who are born in the Slovenian Nation, for well they know Thy delights. Thou art the Queen of all Sausages, of the existing, of the ancient and of the not yet invented. We shall never abandon Thee (Luka 2006).
If you want to know how to prepare the Carniolan sausage and how to serve it, please find the recipe here.
If you want to learn more about the Carniolan sausage and understand Slovenian, I recommend reading Kranjsko klobasanje by Dr. Jernej Mlekuž. It contains stories and anecdotes mentioned here and more! Dr. Mlekuž also has some research papers in English on the topic of the Carniolan sausage.
Mlekuž, Jernej. Venček domačih. Predmeti, Slovencem sveti. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2015.
Mlekuž, Jernej. Kranjsko klobasanje Ljubljana: Založba Beletrina, 2017.
The Carniolan Sausage Festival
Ta ni navadna, ta je kranjska!
Skupaj z astronavti sta v vesolje šli tudi slovenska zastava in kranjska klobasa
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