A book I read recently mentioned Vienna sausage and someone pronouncing it vy-enna. I can't remember which book this was or how it fit into the story, but we've got a couple cans of them that came in Las Vegas hotel gift baskets, so that's what I had for supper tonight.



When I was a kid, the only time we had Vienna Sausage aka 'little weenies' was when we visited my grandparents at Ismay Trading Post in southwest Colorado. If you go there you can get a 'lunch' that is a can of Vienna Sausage, a tube of Saltines, a candy bar or a tube of Fig Newtons, and a can of pop, placed in a brown lunch bag.

When the Navajos pawn their turquoise jewelry it goes into one of those brown paper lunch sacks and the pertinent info gets written on the outside:
Jennie Tsosie 5/16/02
$16.00
$5.00 gas
Lunch

This means that in exchange for an elaborate bracelet Ms. Tsosie received $16.00 cash, some gasoline and one of those lunches. The bracelet will stay there in the sack hung on the wall until some special event like a dance comes up and the Tsosie sons will come and redeem it for a few days, then bring it back and pawn it again.

We'd take our lunch and climb to the top of the mesa that overlooks the store. When we were small, that was an all-day hike with our mother. The Vienna Sausage cans opened with a key back then, so the edge was sharp, and we'd use that to slice the sausages in half, but we always ate them cold.

Mr. Troutbend's family ate Vienna Sausage warmed up, split in half and arranged on buttered bread, and he seems to have fond memories of it, just as I have my own of our way.

Nowadays you can get different flavors of Vienna Sausage - smoked, in barbecue sauce, jalapeno, and hot-spicy, but I prefer the traditional flavor.



I like little weenies sliced into Van Camp's Pork and Beans, the same thing as "Beanee Weenee" which you can also buy from Uncle Robert at Ismay Trading Post.



Uncle Robert with some of the zucchini harvest. Yes, that is what his yard looks like - this is one of the less cluttered parts.