Saucisson neuchâtelois
A smoked pork sausage, seasoned with pepper and garlic, poached for about half an hour in water that must not boil. Protected by an IGP, it is eaten hot or cold, often with a potato salad.
In a Neuchâtel pasture, a fire is burning down. Under the embers, a saucisson wrapped in cabbage, paper and a well-soaked newspaper is buried; half an hour later, it is cooked. This is the torrée, dear to the canton’s foresters and walkers alike.
Origin
With no archives to go on, the canton’s master butchers gathered the memories of older colleagues in the 1990s: it was already known and enjoyed before 1900. A home economics book from the same period gives it its cantonal name, and an 1895 menu mentions a saucisson probably served hot. Around 1930, the Atlas of Swiss Folklore records it on the southern Littoral and in the Val-de-Travers; further north, people preferred its cousin, a meat sausage tied in a loop. Fattier than today, it then spent three to seven days in the smoke, so that it would keep longer.
Making
The pork is cut into small dice, two parts lean to one part fat, and seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic, nothing else: the caraway some butchers used disappeared with the IGP. Only the casing, always beef, sets the straight saucisson apart from the curved, thinner saucisse. Hung on a string, it drains for at least twelve hours, then it is cold-smoked, below 25 °C and over softwood only, for one to three days. It comes out golden.
At the table
Hot or cold, it is first poached for thirty to forty minutes, at around 80 °C, without boiling. It often goes into the pot with potatoes, carrots or leeks. It also goes with sour turnip, creamed leeks, a potato salad or even a dandelion salad, unless it is hiding in a brioche. Fresh from the torrée, it needs nothing but bread and salad.
Today
Saucisson and saucisse neuchâtelois have been protected by an IGP since 2003. The pig may have been raised elsewhere in Switzerland, but it must be made in the canton, the Swiss PDO-PGI Association points out. Culinary Heritage of Switzerland estimates production at 145 tonnes a year. It can be found at most butchers and supermarkets in Neuchâtel, much less so beyond.
Sources: Culinary Heritage of Switzerland, entry “Saucisson neuchâtelois (IGP), saucisse neuchâteloise (IGP)”; Swiss PDO-PGI Association, factsheet “Saucisson neuchâtelois IGP” and magazine “Reflets de nos terroirs” no. 17 (2018).