On Wednesday September 14, the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame held one of its signature event at the Slovenian SNPJ Farm in Kirtland its 18th Annual Slovenian Sausage Festival. The event is a combination all-day polka party and a contest to vote on the “King of Klobasa” — the best Slovenian sausage from a variety of local sausage makers — who gets to be the official sausage supplier for the Polka Hall of Fame’s three-day Thanksgiving Polka Weekend.
This year’s competitors were Azman Quality Meats (Euclid), Maple Heights Catering (Oakwood), Raddell’s Sausage Shop (Cleveland), and Miro’s Meat Market (Eastlake). And the winner is …. Azman’s! They won both the Best of Fest Jury Awards and the People’s Choice Award, with a estimated 2,000 sausages eaten at the festival from the four suppliers. There’s plenty of back story to Azman’s whose family members have been butchers for more than a century, passing down their legacy.
“The Slovenian sausage is a regional American specialty prepared from recipes brought to the United States by immigrants from Slovenia, where it is known as Kranjska klobasa, they tell us. “Sausages are made with pork, often accented with garlic, and then cured and smoked.”
Learn more about the Polka Weekend where you can sample the sausages here.