Paio de Beja

Appearance & taste

The sausage is wide, round and evenly shaped, 12 to 20 cm long and 6 to 15 cm thick. It is tightly filled, tied at both ends with cotton thread, has a matt sheen and is reddish white; its consistency is semi-firm to firm. When cut it is reddish to pink with white spots, and the filling is even and well bound. The fat is whitish mother-of-pearl in colour, shiny and aromatic.

It tastes soft, slightly salty and sometimes tart and somewhat hot, and has a slightly smoky scent. It is sold whole, in pieces or sliced, prepacked at the place of origin. The label bears the name with the addition “Indicação Geográfica Protegida”, the Community logo and a numbered certification mark through which the sausage can be traced back to the farm.

Production

The pigs of the Alentejano breed are entered in the herd book of the breed and come from farms with holm oak or cork oak woodland, in which they are kept extensively to semi-extensively, mostly outdoors. The sausage is made from meat from the loin, leg and shoulder as well as back fat, 70 to 90 % lean and 10 to 30 % fat, minced by hand or by machine.

Meat and fat are mixed with salt, paprika paste, crushed garlic, cumin, red pepper and pepper; the spices are first soaked in water, according to the specification a practice typical of the region. The mixture rests for one to two days at no more than 10 °C and about 80 to 90 % humidity and is then stuffed into salted natural pig casings. It is smoked for 3 to 12 days, 5 to 10 in summer and 8 to 12 days in winter. Cutting and storage also take place only in the processing area.

Origin & history

The pigs come from a large area defined by the oak woodland present there. It includes municipalities such as Beja, Évora, Portalegre, Castelo Branco, Idanha-a-Nova and Sabugal as well as individual parishes in Loulé, Silves and Tavira. The sausage is processed, ripened, cut and stored only in the municipality of Beja, however, according to the specification because of the particular seasoning and the local method of production.

According to the specification, pork was already eaten in the Baixo Alentejo in the Bronze Age, as finds in megalithic tombs show; further evidence dates from the Celtic period in the 4th century BC. The Romans found acorn fattening and native spice plants here, and the Moors introduced new spices. For centuries the pigs were kept extensively on the acorns of the cork oaks. Sausage-making developed to preserve the meat all year round. According to the specification, Paio de Beja differs from the other sausages of the Alentejo in its spices.