A Tomsic Family Tree

Rice and Blood Sausage Story per Bill Azman Jr.
March 9, 2014

I have made these things since about 1977, and have wondered about a few things.
First of all, to answer your question, rice sausages were distinctly different from blood sausages, when our grandparents made them on the farm. The hogs were raised and fed and fattened up over the summer and fall, and then when it got cold enough to act like a large cooler, they would kill the hogs and start butchering them. They wasted nothing.

The rice sausage we made were originally made from pork hearts, snouts, and lungs, as the main meats, with added cracklings, onions, and rice....the seasoning are salt, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and leaf marjoram. The blood sausages were made with the jowls, and tongues, most of the other head meats...and livers. To this, after cooking and grinding and mixing and seasoning, they would add the blood. The intestines of the pig were used as well as the large intestines....the blood sausages were usually like small zelodec. Mother told me when grandpa Tomsic made his, he would hope that when baked in the oven, the blood sausage when sliced, would stay together, like well packed in the casing.

An interesting side note, in the 60's, the USDA banned the sale of lungs. We tried to still get them, but the inspectors counted the animals going in, and counted the lungs coming out. The Azmans stopped making rice sausages then, and did not make them until I returned in 1976 from Fremont, where I worked at Schiets Motors Motorcycle shop.

I wanted to start making rice sausages, and the recipe from Azman's was gone....no one could find it, anywhere. So Mother sat down and made a recipe from what she remembered...mostly from the Tomsic recipe. Grandma Azman had always used the "ana pist" method....that is, a fistful of this and a fistful of that .....and Mother made it into real, measurable recipe. And, YOUR Mother, was one of the critics we took the first batch to.....a 5lb homemade batch made on Maplecliff, made in bulk, and Your Mother helped tell My Mother what to increase and make it the best.

After taking the mix to another rice sausage fanatic, we approved the mix and made the first batch...Isn't it something how our families are tied together.....your Mother helped us make rice sausages for over 20 years. She would take no pay, and I would offer her food, which she would take occasionally....BUT, she always made a sandwich of zemle, and cverke.
The question I have about making these things is why they used rice.....I really don't know if Slovenia makes rice....I know some of the sausages are made with barley groats....I always figured that grains like barley would be more prevalent in Slovenia , than rice.