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Ralph Stayer (1915-2007)
I regularly hear from Americans of Slovenian descent, and I also like reading about what some of them were up to over there in the New World. One such interesting case is Ralph Stayer, who helped popularize bratwurst in the United States and was, unfortunately, recently the subject of a New York Times obituary.
His story is a good one. During a picnic in 1945, he noticed that a lot of people were throwing away their half-eaten sausages. Recognizing an opportunity, he and his wife drew upon their Austro-Slovenian family recipes to create a sausage that kicked so much ass that he was soon leading a multimillion-dollar company: Johnsonville Sausage Co. They now sell sausages from Mexico to Hong Kong and employ more than 1,000 people. If you eat a sausage at an NFL game, for example, chances are it’s from them. (And if it tastes bad, that’s probably the Austrian influence shining through. Ha, ha!)
The company also hosts a festival called Brat Fest in Madison, Wisconsin, during which people devour about 200,000 sausages over the course of a long weekend. That somehow struck me as the most Slovenian-inspired detail of the whole story.
Stayer left behind 21 great- and grandchildren, a decidedly nontypical Slovenian thing. You can read a bit more about him here.
(Thanks Mark!)
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Wow! I’ve lived in Milwaukee my whole life and I never knew that the tasty goodness of a Johnsonville Brat has a Slovenian connection. Eating Brats will never be the same!
Their website says the recipe for the original sausage comes from Austria. :/
Anonymous: Well, I suppose that would technically be true since there was no Slovenia then. The NYT and most other sources are pretty assiduous about including the Slovenian part of the equation, although no one breaks it down exactly. Unfortunately.
Here’s a story about his funeral, which turned into a giant summertime cookout, with beer, singing and polka music.
I agree it must be OK for someone his age to be called “Austrian”, but I seem to remember a Ms. Knauss-Trump being occasionally described (describing herself?) as Austrian, too.
If you forget the past century, then we’re all Austrians.
The descriptions of Austrian state bureaucracy in “A Man without Qualities” written around 1915 by Klagenfurt-born author Robert Musil took me straight to 21st century Slovenian public administration … I think there’s definitely plenty Austrian left on this side of the Alps (i.e. the sunny side, seveda)