Saucisse de Morteau

Appearance & taste

The Saucisse de Morteau is straight and evenly cylindrical. It is encased in uncoloured natural pork casing, which is closed at one end with a straight wooden peg without pointed ends and tied at the other with a white, cream or beige natural string. The Jésus de Morteau is less regular in shape and considerably thicker. Smoking gives both a golden brown, amber-like colour.

Raw, the sausage smells distinctly of smoke. Cooked, it is firm and juicy, soft and supple, neither hard nor rubbery. The cut surface shows a coarse-grained but well-bound mixture. The taste is balanced and lingering, without acidity or sharpness, meaty and neither too dry nor too fatty.

The sausage is sold raw or cooked, whole or in slices, fresh or frozen. Cooked, sliced and frozen sausages are only available packaged. The label may only refer to smoking in the traditional “Tuyé” if the sausage was smoked exclusively there.

Production

Female and castrated male pigs are fattened. Their fattening feed contains 15 to 35 % milk and dairy by-products, based on dry matter, at least half of which is whey; the supplementary feed consists of at least 50 % cereals. The linoleic acid content of the total feed is below 1.7 %. The carcasses weigh at least 80 kg warm.

Only ham, shoulder, belly, back fat, loin and trimmings (“parage”) go into the sausage mixture, and the neck only without glands and reddening. Mechanically separated meat and mince with a grain size under 8 mm are prohibited, and at most half of the raw material may have been frozen. Everything from preparing the mixture to smoking takes place in the area.

Smoking is done slowly with wood and shavings from conifers, so that the smoke penetrates deep into the sausage. According to the specification, this is necessary above all because of the size, especially for the Jésus de Morteau. The producer controls the fire according to the quantity of sausages, the outside temperature, the humidity and the moisture of the wood, so that the sausage does not ferment.

Origin & history

In Franche-Comté, cattle and dairy farming shape the landscape, and there are cheese dairies everywhere, the “Fruitières”. Their whey is good pig feed; so pig farming developed alongside cheesemaking. Because the pigs eat dairy products, their fat is firm and white; in the sausage the fat granules stay clearly visible, hold up better to smoking and cooking, and the smoke adheres better.

The region’s forests consist mainly of conifers, whose leftovers from the sawmills supply the firewood. In the cold mountain regions, smoking and heating went hand in hand: the result was the “Tuyé”, a central chimney on the farm that was also a smoking chamber. This practice comes from the Haut-Doubs, where the municipality of Morteau also lies. The sausage used to be hung in the Tuyé by its wooden peg; its thickness comes from the pig’s large intestine, and its coarse grain from the fact that the meat was once cut with a knife.

The sausage’s reputation goes back to the 18th century. In a 2008 survey, 71 % of consumers knew the Saucisse de Morteau. Along with wine and cheese, it is regarded as typical of the cuisine of Franche-Comté.