In Texas there is a regional kind of sausage (wurst) that looks a bit like kielbasa but is smoked and dried.

The recipe is simple; pork, salt, pepper, and garlic. Then the sausages are hung in a cold smoking hut where the temperature is not allowed to get to freezing but is also not allowed to get too warm.

In our family most of the sausages were frozen then but a fair number were left to dry.

In English the process is called „cold smoking“. And now Texans just call this „sausage“ and „dried sausage“. Most have no idea it came from northern Germany but I‘m supremely confident that this recipe was brought over in the 1850s.

The Anglos would make beef jerky and essentially hotdogs but the Germans would make this stuff.

All (and I truly mean greater than 90%) of my family came from what was then Prussia and spoke a dialect of German that is now known as „Texas German“.

They had a name for this that I think was maybe Plattdeutsch but I forgot what they called it in German.

Do any of you northerners know? Do you have a Oma oder Opa who speaks Plattdeutsch you could ask?

Anyhow, it may please the Germans to know this recipe is deeply integrated into Texas culture now and along with BBQ brisket is highly prized for it‘s flavor at barbecue competitions all over the state.

When I was young it was something my family made or had to get a local butcher to make. It could not be bought in a store or regular meat market but all the German families in the area knew what it was and many of them had similar traditions.

Now in the town I grew up in it‘s become this really special thing. People drive for hours to come out and buy hundreds of dollars worth of this sausage. I know my kids won’t eat hotdogs or basically any other sausage but they never turn down „Texas sausage“.

I‘d love to remember how to properly refer to it.

TLDR; what is this called? Probably a Plattdeutsch name.

by Working-Anything-456

6 comments

  2. >TLDR; what is this called? Probably a Plattdeutsch name.

    In Plattdeutsch it’s called Salami.

  4. The description and pictures most remind me of “Knackwurst” at least in Thuringa (maybe a bit too far south from what you are describing), some areas in Sachsen-Anhalt also refer to this as “Bratwurst” for whatever reason. On the other hand in different parts of germany asking for “Knackwurst” may give you something completly different, so its hard to find the “proper” name. Maybe translating the german wiki page helps you out, as the english one is sadly a lot shorter:
    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knackwurst

    As you can see there Knackwurst is cold smoked in some areas like Thuringa, while other areas the name refers to hot smoked or even boiled sausages.

    Most of the time they are sold fairly “fresh” which doesnt give them the dry and shriveled up look, however if you leave them hanging for a while they start to look like that.

  5. That depends what is actually made of. it looks like a Salami or Mettwurst, so potentially 1 or more of those could be:

    * Landjäger (Second most likely)
    * Knackwurst
    * Cabanossi
    * Kielbassa (what you said they resemble already)
    * maybe a smoked Bauernstump?
    * A ton of different kinds of Salami or Salsiccia. (Most likely)

    What spices (koriander, garlic, ginger, caraway, fennel, etc.) are used to make them. That could help find out what kinda Salami they are if they are a kind of.

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