The Battle to Save the Swiss National Sausage!

In an area like Switzerland where one can pay $35-40 a pound for beef in the supermarket, it’s a thrill to find ready to eat lunch for under $5. It will not be in a sit down bistro except for one of the appetizers. However, there are possibilities and there’s no cover charge for the entertainment! You can always (and I mean always) get a Swiss sausage on a rustic bread roll or a bit of potato salad at every festival that is going on in the country. They are particularly abundant during Swiss wine tastings events, street music concerts, city and Swiss village festivals, soccer matches and public holiday celebrations all around Switzerland. There is usually a choice of sausage such as the raw smoked type but mostly it’s a choice cervelas or cervelas (also spelled cervelats in the German region). This is the Swiss national sausage par excellence and they are deeply emotionally attached to their cervelas that they have grown up eating since early childhood. With a population of only about 7.5 million, I’ve read that Swiss citizens consume 160 million cervelas every year.

In its Latin origins the name cervelas refers to the “brain” since at one time in Switzerland they were made mostly from pigs including their brains. Today, however be reassured (some of you) that they are made of beef as well as pork, and bacon. Basically they’re boiled and slightly smoked and then usually cooked on an open grill with a lot beer and Swiss wine in the vicinity. I have to say that they are delicious and full of fat and hardly healthy.

But hurry, as the last $5 lunch is under fire from the European Union. Even though Switzerland is not a member, they adhere to most of the directives and the future of the cervelas is in question and all of this is producing a huge national uproar in Switzerland. In order to combat the spread of mad cow disease, the EU has placed a ban on certain imported animal parts and this applies especially to Brazil. Switzerland cervelas producers use zebu intestines (I know, I know…what is that?). A zebu is a type of Asian oxen that is abundant in Brazil and whose intestines make very good sausage casings and are essential for authentic cervelas. But the possible extinction of the cervelas is bigger than just that. Think of the rising cost of cattle intestines in a country like Switzerland and who are you are going to get to clean the innards out of the intestines for the Swiss sausage industry? We could all be reduced to eating soy sausages with organic casings. But the real Swiss soccer fans are never going to go for the tofu hotdog! Without the zebu, we are going to be very unhappy at the next festival which I think is tomorrow night!

Bon appetit!

The Sacred Swiss Sausages

[Image Courtesy of Thoth, God of Knowledge, flickr]

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