Kranjska klobasa

Appearance & taste

Before eating, the sausage is left to steep briefly in hot water, which brings out its qualities. The skin is reddish brown, the smoky aroma mild. Inside, the sausage is pink to red, and the fat is creamy white and not melted. It is plump, crisp and juicy and has the pronounced aroma of salted, seasoned and smoked pork.

Before heating, the sausage contains at least 17 % protein and at most 29 % fat. Each pair carries the same self-adhesive band with the protected name, the producer’s logo and the EU symbol; packaged sausages carry a label.

Production

The sausage is made from coarsely minced category I and II pork, that is leg, shoulder and neck, and from back fat. Nitrite curing salt is added to the sausage meat, which is seasoned with garlic and pepper and filled into pork small intestines. Their ends are closed with a wooden skewer, and the sausages are joined in pairs. After drying they are hot-smoked and so preserved.

All steps, from selecting and mincing the meat and fat, mixing the sausage meat, filling, drying and hot-smoking to inspection and labelling, take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area covers Slovenia between the Alps and the Adriatic, from the border with Italy to the border with Hungary. The name goes back to Carniola (Kranjska), first mentioned as “Creina” in 973, a margraviate of its own from 1002 and a Habsburg land until 1918. According to the specification, Carniola was the only purely Slovene land, and “Krainer” was used as another word for “Slovene”; today’s Republic of Slovenia covers its entire territory.

In the rugged landscape of mountains, valleys, basins and plains, the inhabitants used part of their fields for pig feed, and meat products arose with pig farming. Medieval frescoes and documents such as a communication from the castellan of Vrbovec from the 17th century bear witness to sausage making. According to the specification, the semi-durable sausage became known as Krainer Wurst in the Habsburg monarchy in the early 19th century. Sea salt, which competed with rock salt in Carniola, was also important for its quality.

The oldest mentions under this name are in Katharina Prato’s “Süddeutsche Küche” (1896) and in the sixth edition of Felicita Kalinšek’s “Slovenska kuharica” (1912), which already describes how it is made. Oral tradition often names the village of Trzin between Ljubljana and Kamnik as its origin, whose butchers supplied markets as far as Vienna in the 19th century; others derive the name from the town of Kranj. According to an anecdote, Emperor Franz Joseph tasted the “ordinary home-made sausage” of an inn in Naklo near Kranj and exclaimed that this was no ordinary sausage but a Krainer Wurst. Today it is made and sold in all regions of Slovenia.