Make Sausage, Not War

Today the snail mailman, and I can say mailman because he is in fact male, brought me a newspaper clipping sent by my aunt and number one fan, Sharon. It's about the sausage making traditions of Volga Germans, and not only did I learn a bit about sausage, (and I thought I knew a lot about sausage, wank wank, I mean wink wink) but I learned some of our family history as well.

First of all, Volga Germans are part of a larger group of Germans from Russia. My dads side of the family belongs to this particular know-it-all, better-than-everyone group and I'm very proud of that because, of course, I know everything, I'm always right and I'm better than you. Just like my grandma. Just kidding. Sort of. Anyway, this group came to be known as Volga Germans because they moved from Germany to Russia and lived along the lower Volga River in search of peace after the Seven Year War. Catherine the Great made them a pretty sweet deal to move there and live on her land because she knew the Germans kicked ass. It was here that they started toying around with sausage. Sounds fun eh? Since the empress forgot to include refrigeration in her package deal, sausage became the way to preserve meat, and they got really good at mixing in the right spices for some pretty tasty stuff.
Secondly, I learned that these sausages are an essential part of the Volga German Christmas table, but they are on the road to extinction. These unique, hand mixed, hand stuffed sausages are mainly being made by the older generation with little interest by the younger crowd to learn the craft. My aunt says that once a year the Edison Social Club members bring a son to their gathering and show them the ropes of this sausage making tradition. She got to go once as a scab for one of her cousins, and guess who gets to go and master the sausage stuffer next?

I'll be a natural.