293602 Fri Jul 25 23:45:04 -0700 2003 6 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1607360 I bought some of this smoked beef sausage (manufactured by Brother and Sister Food Trading, Long Island) at a Middle Eastern market here in California. It's delicious, if rather rich and intense -- sort of a cross between landjaeger and pepperoni. Anyone know anything about it? Google turned up no hits, and I'm guessing there are alternate spellings but I don't know what they might be. Does "Albanska" have anything to do with Albania? How would you serve it besides hacking chunks off and knawing on them? Fri Jul 25 23:45:04 -0700 2003 0 Ruth Lafler 1 1607372 Ruth, I think you are talking about Suxhuk, an Albanian sausage. The link below has a picture of it (you can also buy it at this site). There's also an Arab beef sausage called Sujuq (or Suguq in Egyptian.) Here's a link to a description of that: http://www.cliffordawright.com/history/sausage.html Hope this helps. --NancyB Link: http://www.albanianshopping.com/cgi-bin/ALBstore.cgi?user_action=category&category=Food Sat Jul 26 13:15:11 -0700 2003 1607360 0 Nancy Berry 2 1607380 I think the "Suxhuk" must be it. The name on the label is undoubtedly some other language's name for "Albanian Suxhuk." And the picture looks close. Once again, Nancy comes through! Thanks! Sat Jul 26 15:02:41 -0700 2003 1607372 0 Ruth Lafler 3 1607395 Albanska is Swedish for Albanian. Supposedly there's a smallish (~30k) Albanian community in Sweden. Sat Jul 26 19:04:11 -0700 2003 1607380 0 ericf 4 1607401 Fascinating! So I wonder if this company is run by Swedish Albanians (or would that be Albanian Swedes?), or whether they just got the recipe from some? Or some other cross-cultural exchange? There's a whole untapped field of study in the ethnography of food labels. Sat Jul 26 20:04:02 -0700 2003 1607395 0 Ruth Lafler 5 1607677 There's another possibility that I didn't think of- albanska also appears to mean Albanian in Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian. I wasn't able to find much reference to sudzuka, except as a Croatian surname, but in one of the links from Nancy, she notes that Egypt and Turkey have similar-sounding sausages; she didn't mention in that same list, there's the Greek Soutzoukaki and Soutzoukia. Actually, I did find a reference to sudzuka on a toppings list for a Bosnian pizza parlor. Given that the sausage was made in New York, I tend to think that it's more likely that its made by immigrants from the former Yugoslavia. Tue Jul 29 04:13:47 -0700 2003 1607401 0 ericf 6 1607715 That makes more sense. Perhaps if it's made by Bosnian Muslims that explains the Middle Eastern Market connection (since although I don't see any markings on the package that indicate it's halal, other sausages in the case where I bought it were halal). Since it's similar to pepperoni, I can see it being used as a non-pork pizza topping. I still haven't figured out what I'm going to use it for, although it's salty enough that it might be really good with potatoes -- potato chowder or something. Tue Jul 29 12:13:41 -0700 2003 1607677 0 Ruth Lafler