By Tara V. Kohlenberg ─

One might think that New Braunfels knows sausage because of Wurstfest, when it is really the other way around. New Braunfels has Wurstfest because We Know Sausage.

Sausage making is an art that requires patience, skill, and attention to detail. A food staple of many cultures, sausage evolved as a way to efficiently preserve meat for long periods of time.

Early sausage makers found that a wide range of raw ingredients could be used, including the parts of the animal carcasses that could not be used in other ways, including the less tender cuts, organ meats and blood.

Good sausage makers are as discriminating about what goes into sausage as winemakers are about grape selection. They take into account not only the meat used, but also the aroma of seasonings and balance of flavors to create a juicy, tender sausage with a satisfying ‘snap’ upon first bite. Sausage makers of the world’s cultures used regional ingredients and spices, contributing to a vast culinary diversity of sausage, even though the processes were basically the same. By the 19th century, butchers and sausage makers were considered skilled craftsmen in Germany. They had to undergo years of apprenticeships and rigorous practice, before recognition as a Metzgermeister or master sausage maker.

Karl August Lohse, believed to be the first commercial sausage maker in New Braunfels, was born in 1830 in Meissen, Saxony. He apprenticed under a master butcher for three and one-half years before being issued a diploma. For the next eight years, he traveled as a journeyman working under other butchers to hone his trade. He set sail for Texas as a Metzgermeister in 1860. He is attributed with spreading the fame of Comal County’s German sausages by supplying them to San Antonio on a regular basis.

By 1961, with a population of about 16,000 people, New Braunfels boasted at least nineteen commercial sausage makers (roughly one sausage maker per 850 people). Local veterinarian and meat inspector E.A. Grist knew them all. He proposed that New Braunfels recognize and honor the local sausage makers with a sausage week.

The inaugural Sausage Festival Week was held December 11-16, 1961. Sausage makers and local merchants promoted and displayed all types of sausage made in New Braunfels while restaurants featured sausage dishes on their menus. The week ended with a public sausage supper scheduled in Landa Park. The Saturday supper event was actually held in the National Guard Armory due to bad weather.

The stars of the show were the sausage makers: Artzt Meat market, Brodt’s Slaughter House, Fritz’s Meat Market, Kraft Slaughter House, Krause’s Café, Kriewald Meat, Neuse’s Grocery, New Braunfels Smokehouse, Norbert’s Market & Grocery, Rahe Packing Company (now Granzin’s Meat), Schwamkrug’s Garden, Soechting Country Market, Textile Café, Warnecke Catering and Weyel’s IGA Foodliner and others.

Today, grocery stores are huge and stock a lot of prepackaged, big name sausage brands. There are only a handful of commercial sausage makers in New Braunfels who have grown to meet the demand. The traditional local butcher shops that still make their own sausage include Granzin’s Meat Market, Rust Game Place, and although not really in Comal County, Penshorn’s Meat Market in Marion. In addition, there may be some game processors that make venison sausage for their customers.

There are two large-scale United States Department of Agriculture commercial sausage operations: 1845 Meat Company and the New Braunfels Smokehouse. They sell both wholesale and retail, promoting and shipping on a national level. They keep up the tradition of providing locally made sausage for Wurstfest, along with Rust Game place.

Of course, many local farmers still slaughter and butcher their own farm animals (hogs and calves) for their use. It is a big job. Butchering meant days of work by the whole family to process the meat, make sausage and render fat for soap making. Over the years, they developed their own secret family sausage recipes, many of which were passed down through the generations.

For the uninitiated, sausage is made by grinding up meat parts of an animal and mixing with spices and seasonings. I have participated with my family in a weekend of deer processing and sausage making. I started with turning casings (pig intestines) and moved up to tying sausage off with string. It is a great way to carry on the family recipe; however, I have to admit, it is tough doing everything by hand for 80 pounds of sausage. I was never in charge of the smoking chore. It can be complex and take hours.

According to Smokemeister Charles McKinnis, 1845 Meat Company makes sausage in 200-pound batches. Each batch goes through the same steps: primary grind of selected meat; second grind with seasonings added; third grind with curing agent; then stuffed into natural casings and hung, which takes about 50 minutes. From there, they go to a huge smokehouse oven to be smoked and steamed for about two hours. That is considerably shorter than the six hours needed for traditional smokehouse ovens. Once the sausages are chilled, they are packaged, labeled and dated according to USDA requirements. Two hundred pounds in three hours is a way better average than my 80 pounds in a week.

Every sausage maker learns from someone else. It is great to be able to naturally discern subtle flavors and aromas, but that skill is usually coached by someone else. McKinnis learned about flavors from his mother and his grandmother. He learned about flavor formulations from Clint Skarosky. Mostly, McKinnis spent at least 20 years under the tutelage of Smokemeister Rocky Tays, who has at least 50 years in the business. He learned not only about how to make sausage, but how to do it right to meet USDA regulations.

The time-honored process of sausage making is a big part of New Braunfels’ German heritage.

With every butcher shop or local sausage maker that closes, an invaluable culinary heritage is lost.

Sources: The Sophienburg Museum and Archives; Mike Dietert; Wurstfest New Braunfels: the First Fifty Years by Alton J. Rahe; Charles McKinnis.

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

The post Traditional sausage making: a time-honored process appeared first on Sophies Shop.

Many of us grew up eating “pannas.” My grandmother made it often, especially when the menfolk were butchering and making sausage. She would take the hog head into the kitchen and put it in a big pot of water. I would come into the kitchen and see that big snout sticking up out of the top of the pot. As the water boiled, all that good meat in the hog’s cheeks fell away and created a lovely rich broth. She took that broth full of meat bits and added spices and cornmeal before pouring the whole lot into pans to cool. Grandma then cut the cooled pannas into slices, turned it in flour, and fried it up for all us waiting children. Yummmmmm …

But why did we make pannas? Back in the day, nothing was wasted. The making of blood sausage, liver sausage, and pannas, was a way of making sure everything from the butchering process was used.

Corn is a “New World” food — the cultivation of corn began about 7,000 years ago in central Mexico and spread into North and South America. It was introduced to Spain by Columbus. Early Anglo-Americans would have died of hunger had the Native Americans not shared with them how to cultivate and eat corn. They showed them how to make corn into bread, porridge, pudding, soup, and fried cakes. The early German immigrants to New Braunfels were not in the habit of eating cornmeal, as back home corn was something they fed to pigs. They were used to using wheat as the main staple in their diets. Pannas helped them get used to — and learn to embrace — corn.

There are a lot of different spellings and names for pannas. In the Midwest and northern US, many folks call it “scrapple.” Scrapple even has its own national day — November 9th. Although scraps of meat are used in the recipes, the word “scrapple” comes from the process of scraping the large cast iron pot used to cook the pork. Our archives coordinator at the Sophienburg remembers her grandfather making scrapple in a huge cast iron kettle when she was a child. She’s from Pennsylvania and they called the result “ponhaws.” They ate it fried for breakfast and smothered it with King Syrup, a blended golden syrup of corn and sugar syrups.

We have several volunteers from Northern Germany who did not grow up eating pannas, but the Sophienburg has had German visitors who have told us it is made and eaten in parts of Germany now. They call it Grützwurst or grain sausage.

To me, pannas is sort of like a deconstructed tamale with different spices. Maybe the Germans just didn’t get into the whole tamale preparation thing and came up with their own quick way of using pork and corn. It really doesn’t matter because the result of both is DELICIOUS.

Is pannas is new to you? If you are curious or just feeling adventurous, you can try the recipe from Ora Mae Pfeuffer in the Guten Appetit! Cookbook sold by Sophie’s Shop. This recipe uses pork bones, pork sausage or hamburger. Pannas can also be made with beef, turkey or ham. My mom always uses the leftover ham and ham bones from Thanksgiving and Easter to make us pannas. We eat it for any meal: Fried with eggs or fried and laid on toast — and we put mustard on it.

The old Krause’s Café used to sell pannas in the butcher shop area. My brother has been trying to recreate that recipe, but if you ask him for it be prepared. It makes a ton of pannas. Today, the only place I know of that you can buy pannas “readymade” is at Granzin’s Meat Market. Let us know what you think.

P.S. In regards to the “gold” treasure chest story, I was given information that descendants of one of the gentlemen who found the chest still have it! They bought it and keep it safe. Imagine passing down a treasure chest in your family. Real or fake it would be amazing!

Sources:

• Tri-County Farms — http://www.tricountyfarm.org/
• Smithsonian — http://www.mnh.si.edu/

The post What is pannas? appeared first on Sophies Shop.

School is out and summer is here, heralding the throngs of visitors that will be descending upon our beautiful rivers and lakes. They come because they are drawn by the water, not unlike people who have come here for hundreds of years. Or they come because they like the atmosphere, but they don’t always know about the history of New Braunfels or what New Braunfels went through to become what it is today. In the twenty-six Around the Sophienburg columns a year written first by Myra Lee Adams Goff and now by Sophienburg staff Keva Hoffmann Boardman and Tara Voigt Kohlenberg, we try to share the history of New Braunfels. A lot has happened here since 1845 (173 years), so there is no lack of subject matter. This column will tip its hat to Naegelin’s Bakery, the oldest continuously operating bakery in Texas. One hundred and fifty years ago, Edward Naegelin arrived in New Braunfels. With “a sack of flour and a dollar”, he opened his own bakery on the corner of Mill Street and Seguin Street (aha… not where you thought!). As his business grew he relocated to the current location on Seguin Street. Three generations of Naegelins held the reins before passing them to the Granzin family. This little bakery is not only on the “must stop” list of every tourist, it has remained a favorite of locals.

One local in particular, MacKenzie Minor, wrote about her love of New Braunfels and Naegelin’s bakery. MacKenzie is a Canyon High School graduating senior and recipient of the Myra Lee Goff History Scholarship given by the Sophienburg Museum & Archives.

As a girl born and raised in New Braunfels, Texas, this small town holds a big place in my heart. I have watched the town grow and meanwhile, I have grown up with it. My roots stem from Landa Park, the public library, and Naegelin’s bakery. These are the places I have left small pieces of my heart at, and even as a go on to bigger adventures, I will always remember my roots.

The most infamous piece of my childhood is sitting outside of Naegelin’s bakery once a week underneath the blue umbrella tables eating a chocolate cupcake surrounded by my two sisters and our mom. We would play all morning long at home, and then head to the small rock bakery on the corner of the circle to make memories that, little did we know, would last forever. Every Tuesday was our day to sugar up on our choice of a special treat. My typical treat of choice was a cupcake topped with a plastic ring; I only chose it because being the fashionista I thought I was, I wanted to wear the ring. To this day, although my two sisters are in college and away from us, my mother and I continue to find ourselves grabbing a quick kolache after a doctor’s appointment down the road or satisfying our cravings with a half price donut in the middle of the afternoon. Naegelin’s will continue to be our favorite bakery. Now, as a senior about to graduate and pursue a degree in Fashion, I find myself reminiscing on these sweet moments of laughter, summer days, and stylish plastic rings more than I ever realized I would. With Naegelin’s 150th Anniversary quickly approaching in April, the Granzin Family is more than deserving of a heart felt thank you from myself and the rest of the town of New Braunfels who loves our small little bakery more than expressible.

A “Thank You,” particularly for helping upkeep the atmosphere of the small town I have always known despite the population growth and for letting me reminisce on my childhood memories each time I pass by or through. Beyond Naegelin’s, I am proud to be a frequent customer of Granzin’s BBQ and the Granzin’s Meat Market. Further than the quality of food that is made, the service I receive is always welcoming and worthy of praise. The Granzin family has continued the preservation of their three locations in New Braunfels and continues to spread joy whether it’s by making and serving breakfast tacos on Comal County Parade Day or a sweet tea on a summer day.

With the changes and growth that my beloved town is constantly experiencing I love attending these regular places with the same smells and memories that they have always held for me as the years go by. Whether I’m smiling because it’s a good day or because I’m treating myself to a legendary smiley face cookie, I always have a smile if I’m at one of the three places.”

Happy Birthday to Naegelin’s and Thank You to the Granzin family for maintaining the proud history. You can learn more about Naegelin’s Bakery on https://sophienburg.wpenginepowered.com/naegelins-bakery-still-baking/ or stop by Naegelin’s to feed your own sweet memories.

The post 2018 Sophienburg scholarship awarded appeared first on Sophies Shop.