The Swiss National Sausage

This might sound a little bit strange for the non-Swiss, but its essential to set this one right early on.

There is one central sausage in Switzerland. Some people may try to convince you otherwise. People from the canton Sankt Gallen for example will tell you "da dör me nöd säge! dasch denn öbbe nöd de serwela, daschd broodwoascht gopferdeckchl!". But I assure you, they are wrong (right, Livi?). Like many things east of Basel. But that is another story and will be told another time.

The (and we are talking The with a capital T here) sausage is the Cervelat. Or Klöpfer. It's a pretty boring sausage, actually, at least compared to things like a Nürnberger (remember the BBQ at City YHA?), or a Citterio Salami, or a Saucisson Vaudoise, but: Swiss people get this one here probably right after they have been weened off their mothers milk. The cervelat can be eaten cold, and especially the Wurstsalat has become famous in its own right. Or even better, the "Wurstsalat garniert". Which is, honestly, also not something that will ever make it into the gourmet hall of fame, but on a hot sommer evening, together with a cold beer it can't be beaten. Oh no sir, not this one. Think hilly country side, a nice inn at the far end of the village, a garden with a couple of benches, a large horse-chestnut tree whose shade cools the place and then, the Wurstsalat garniert. Oh yeah.

But that's not the topic here. The topic is the Cervelat itself. Which, actually, should be grilled. Or even better, grilled on a wood fire. When you are out and hiking, there the Cervelat shines. You learn it from your father, or in the boy scouts, if your father is more the couch potato: how to collect the right twigs and branches for the fire, how to ignite it with a single match, that you have to wait until the flames are gone, until there are only red hot embers. Look for the ones covered in white ash, those are the hottest ones. And then grill the Cervelat on them. You need to find a wooden stick (that's where the Swiss army knife comes in handy) and sharpen one end. Then cut crosses (Switzerland!) into each end of the sausage and put it on the stick. When the Cervelat heats up, the ends will bend outwards, making it look quite funny. Once the sausage is ready, you can put a little bit of mustard on top of each of the eight little ends and eat them one by one. Delicious!

There are two fractions in Switzerland. One claims that you have to skin the sausage before you grill it. The other fraction heavily opposes that. There is no consense here (ask Esther! She still insists on keeping the skin on!).

The picture is actually a piece of art, and it shows exactly how a perfectly grilled Cervelat looks like.

And as my mother uses to say (and Stefan Remmler): everything has an end, only the sausage has two.

But there is also a sad addition to it: the skin of the Cervelat comes actually from Brasil. Where they have the only cattle with the right guts for this kind of skin. But the European Union fears that these guts might contain the stuff that causes mad cow disease. And they want to ban the import of these guts. The Swiss were shocked. So far, we haven't run out of guts, but it could well be that the shape of the Cervelat might change in the near future. What a country, where these are the only problems...