Oecher Puttes

Appearance & taste

The Puttes is a spicy black pudding. Its cut surface is typical: the white cubes of back fat stand out from the dark sausage mass. Because the fat is cooked beforehand, the blood does not colour it red. It is seasoned in particular with pepper, marjoram, thyme, cloves and nutmeg; marjoram is compulsory.

The sausage contains about 35 % fatty tissue and about 20 % lean meat, at most 40 % fat and at least 5 % meat protein free of connective tissue protein. It thus corresponds to the German guidelines (“Leitsätze”) for medium quality. It is offered fresh, smoked and preserved, in natural casings such as beef runners, beef middles and pork bungs, in sterile casings and in jars and tin cans.

Production

Back fat without rind, pig’s head meat, rinds and lean meat are pre-cooked in hot water. The blood is warmed to about 45 °C; according to the specification, this softens its iron taste and improves the binding of the mass. Then first the rinds with the blood and later the head meat with the lean meat are chopped in a bowl cutter and finely minced with braised onions, nitrite curing salt, spices and a little cooking broth.

The back fat must be fresh; according to the specification, even prompt freezing does not effectively stop oxidation. It is cut into even cubes, heated in the cooking broth until the cubes are slightly translucent, and mixed into the mass by hand. The sausage is then filled and, depending on the required shelf life, scalded in a water bath at 78 °C or heated in a pressure vessel for preserves. Natural casings can also be smoked. All steps up to the filled product ready for sale take place in Aachen; slicing and repackaging are also permitted elsewhere.

Origin & history

Aachen lies in a basin. Its location and protective city wall gave the city its own identity early on. When industrialisation began around 200 years ago, the area south of Aachen quickly became an industrial area, while the fertile north-east remained agricultural. The Puttes fed the hard-working people in factories and mines and at the same time made use of slaughter products such as blood. Craft butchers passed recipes and methods down from generation to generation; according to the specification, they look back on a tradition of more than 200 years with the Puttes.

The name Oecher Puttes is used only for the black pudding from Aachen. In the Aachen carnival, the Fastelovvend, the Puttes in ring form serves as provisions for the road and as something to throw, and a Puttes order is awarded. The dialect poet Ferdinand Jansen (1758–1834) already dedicated the poem “Der Puttes” to it.