Saucisson d'Ardenne

Appearance & taste

The three names refer to the same sausage in three cylindrical forms. The Saucisson is straight and elongated, 30 to 90 mm thick and at most 60 cm long in one piece, with a maximum weight of about 2.2 kg. The Collier is ring-shaped, 20 to 40 mm thick and weighs 200 to 600 g. The smaller Pipe is straight, 30 mm thick and weighs at most 150 g.

The surface is smooth and slightly oily, the thin skin dark red. Inside, the sausage is a strong red, interspersed with small white pieces of fat. The round or slightly elongated grain of at most 4 to 8 mm is clearly visible, yet the sausage is compact. It is so firm that it cannot be pressed in with a finger, but it is supple when eaten and not at all dry. The fine smoky aroma predominates, more or less pronounced depending on the producer, and lingers long in the mouth. The sausage smells slightly of fresh meat and spices; in addition to the smoke there is a slight acidity and woody, peppery and resinous notes, also from the juniper berries. The other spices stay in the background; garlic can be tasted only slightly at most. According to the specification, it differs from a similar sausage from the Gaume in its finer grain, stronger drying and typical spices, above all juniper.

Production

Only pork is used – fat and lean meat – or a mixture with beef that makes up at most 40 % of the fresh weight. Offal, mechanically separated meat, diaphragm and rinds are excluded. The sausage is filled into porous natural casings, collagen-based casings or glued casings, and for pre-sliced products also into plastic casings; they may not be coloured. The sausage is cold-smoked by slowly burning chips or logs of oak or beech; softwood and recycled wood are prohibited. Juniper berries may be added to the fuel. The finished sausage contains at most 4.0 % salt.

All steps from preparing the sausage meat to drying take place in the Ardennes. Today there are two equivalent recipes, one with pork only and one with up to 40 % beef; according to the specification the difference in taste is not perceptible, as it depends mainly on the smoking and seasoning.

Origin & history

The area is the same as the one laid down in 1974 for Jambon d’Ardenne: the whole province of Luxembourg and neighbouring parts of the provinces of Liège and Namur. The damp south-westerly winds build up against the ridges, which rise to 700 m; the climate is cold and damp, with long cold winters from October to May and rainy summers. The forests go back to the old Charcoal Forest with beeches and oaks. Because the plateaus with steep slopes and poor soils are hardly suited to arable farming, mainly livestock is kept; clearing and grazing created heaths with heather and juniper in the valleys.

Smoking is part of the Ardennes tradition. According to the specification, it differs from that of the neighbouring regions: in the Black Forest smoking is stronger, with softwood, in the Gaume the smoky note is weaker, and in the French Ardennes it is absent. The butchers used the whole pig: the tender parts for Jambon d’Ardenne, the less noble ones for sausage. With cattle breeding, beef was added at the end of the 19th century; when ever leaner cattle were bred from the 1950s onwards, its share fell without disappearing completely. The name “Saucisson d’Ardenne” has been documented since 1890, when mincers, bowl cutters and cold rooms came into sausage making and the first recipes appeared in specialist books.