Csabai kolbász

Appearance & taste

The sausage is evenly thick and cylindrical, 40 to 60 mm in diameter and 20 to 55 cm long. One end is tied off and tapers towards the hanging loop, the other is rounded. The reddish-brown casing is slightly wrinkled but not bulging, fits the filling closely and lets the grains of fat show through. The sausage is firm and flexible, neither soft nor hard or tough, and is easy to slice.

The cut surface shows evenly distributed grains 4 to 6 mm in size: the meat dark red from the paprika, the fat white or orange-red from the paprika. Smoking and spices give it a pleasant smell, and the taste is harmonious and hot. Among the spices, the heat of the paprika dominates. The sausage contains at least 15 % meat protein free of connective tissue protein, and its water activity is at most 0.91. It is sold unpacked or vacuum- or modified-atmosphere-packed, whole or sliced.

Production

Meat and fat come from pigs fattened to at least 135 kg: crosses of the Hungarian large white meat pig with Mangalica and “magyar lapály” as well as Hampshire, Duroc and Piétrain pigs and their hybrids. The pig halves are boned exclusively by hand, which allows the sinews to be removed particularly thoroughly. Leg, shoulder, thick flank, belly, loin, neck and rib piece are used, as well as firm back fat without glands.

Meat and fat are minced by machine, frozen or pre-chilled, to 4 to 6 mm and mixed with the spices and nitrite salt. The mass is filled into pig’s large intestine, the so-called “Kuláré”, or into artificial casing permeable to water vapour; the ends are closed with metal clips or tied off. Then the sausages are smoked for 3 to 5 days below 20 °C and at 70 to 90 % humidity in the smoke of slowly smouldering hardwood logs, as a rule beech.

They then ripen and dry slowly at 16 to 18 °C. The humidity is gradually lowered from 90–92 % to 65–70 % so that no crust forms. Drying ends when a water activity of 0.91 is reached: after about 4 weeks in artificial casing, after about 6 weeks in pig’s large intestine. This is followed by after-ripening, during which the moisture in the packed product evens out, the cut surface becomes more uniform and the texture finer.

Origin & history

Békéscsaba and Gyula lie in the south-east of the Great Hungarian Plain, in one of the lowest-lying areas of Hungary, on the Budapest–Arad–Bucharest route towards the Balkans. The climate is moderately continental, and the Körös rivers shape landscape and climate. Grain growing and livestock breeding have a long tradition here. The area became an important resting place for the trade-fair caravans travelling from the Balkans to Vienna, above all for cattle dealers. Injured livestock could be slaughtered and processed here; butchers and master butchers settled for this purpose and to supply the many strangers, and so the later meat industry came into being.

The name “Csabai kolbász” has appeared in the specialist literature since the early 1930s. A monograph on Békés County published in 1936 writes that Békéscsaba owes its fame to its meat processing. According to a chronicle, around the turn of the century it was first the town’s inhabitants who praised the host’s sausage at pig-slaughtering feasts; then it became known in the county and, after one or two decades, throughout Hungary. Besides paprika and salt, it contains caraway, pepper and garlic, but none of these spices may stand out.

“Industrial” production began in the early 20th century: a company founded in 1911 made the somewhat hotly spiced sausage in pig’s large intestine at the suggestion of master butchers from the surrounding area. It was also produced in Gyula on the recommendation of master butchers from Békéscsaba, and its name preserved its origin in the neighbouring town. After the Second World War, production continued without interruption in both towns despite nationalisation, several reorganisations and changes of ownership. Since 1997 the Csabai Kolbász Festival has been held in Békéscsaba every year in the second half of October.