The Event ~ Making German Garlic Sausage

Some German Russian family traditions just keep on going strong.  Specifically, making our own garlic sausage. 

When I married into this family in 1970, I learned alot about being self-sufficient.  We raised and butchered our own chickens, we gathered eggs, we milked cows, we froze pickup loads of fresh corn, did alot of canning,  stomped our own sauerkraut, and made our own garlic sausage.  Traditions in the family that kept going for a long time. 

Last night we made garlic sausage.  We do this about once a year, usually whenever we send one of our own market steers to the meat processors.  We put some of our fresh ground hamburger with some fresh ground pork, add some garlic salt, salt and pepper, and run it through the old German sausage stuffer.  Out comes rings and rolls of garlic sausage held together by pork intestinal casings (cleaned of course!).

It tastes so good fresh as we fry up several sample patties in an effort to get just the right amount of seasonings.  Adding about 25 pound packages of fresh sausage to the freezer is just another lesson in self-sufficiency ~ and eating good!

We enjoy getting out the old sausage stuffer.  This stuffer belonged to Tim's Grandpa Stricker, was passed on to Tim's Dad, and now we have it.  It has certainly stood the test of time through the last 80 years.

Perhaps the tradition will continue if the sausage stuffer continues to stay in the family and get passed down from generation to generation.  It is an event not to be lost through the years, but continued in the family history books!