PalenQ

AP article this morning says that Cervelat sausages - a beloved Swiss specialty - may well be off the menu and out of stock before the end of the year though some suppliers say could be by this summer

A task force has been assembled to prevent this sacrilege

Cervelat Sausage - which i never heard of - some 160 million consumed by 7 million Swiss a year - they gobble them down raw (!), boiled or grilled

Seemsd an EU ban on Brazilian cow intestines because of Mad Cow fears

Swiss though not EU member accept EU import rules

Swiss suppliers searching for alternative sources in South America but fear the supply - only from Zebu cattle and which is vital to the way the Swiss sausage is prepared - cannot fill the Brazilian void.

Swiss vegetarians are sitting this one out.HAS ANYONE EVER HAD A CERVELAT SAUSAGE AND IS IT AS GREAT AS IT SOUNDS - RAW???

kleeblatt

Millions of times.

This is our standard staple when we go hiking. Bring a loaf of bread and cervelat (or bratwurst), get a stick and roast over open fire.

Cervelats are close to your US hot dogs but taste better.

We've been informed about this dilemna and hope it will be resolved before the EM or else cervelat lovers will be in big trouble next spring.

kleeblatt

Link for a picture of our national Swiss treasure: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cervelat

marigross

I have had them! Usually grilled. With bread and mustard, very good.

Like schuler said, they are similar to Hot Dogs, which are fully cooked and only need to be heated if one so prefers.

There are alos lots of smoked sausages that can be eaten 'raw'.

PatrickLondon

I've always assumed, from the name, that we'd be talking brains, not intestines: that would be consistent with anxieties over CJD.

traveller1959

What's unusual about eating raw meat?

We eat dozens of kinds of sausages raw, especially Mettwurst.

Everybody eats steak tartare and carpaccio. And a well-grilled steak is just warm, but raw inside.

A German specialty is raw pork, just salted and peppered (Mett). It is here as popular as peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich in the USA.

BTW, the figures for CJD have declined during the last years. We currently have about 30 cases per year in a population of 82 million.

WillTravel

Maybe most everyone eats raw meat in Europe, but it is not a commonplace choice in the US and Canada. We are too worried about food safety issues. Few people would consider eating raw pork, due to trichinosis concerns.

traveller1959

trichinosis,

boy, the microscope has been invented in 1600!

Each individual animal is carefully inspected. We had not one case of trichinosis in the last century.

When I am in the USA, I eat all the time raw beef, raw venison, raw fish, raw oysters, raw eggs.. (although I admit that in the last years warning signs have occurred in restaurants, but probably just because of product liability).

quokka

Trichinosis concerns??? Isn't the meat checked for that in the US and Canada? In Central Europe no meat enters any butchers' shop without having been inspected.

WillTravel

I presume the pork is checked, but trichinosis is still mentioned as a concern. The other, probably more pressing concern, is E coli. Several serious restaurant outbreaks, which killed and maimed doznes, have made restaurants very leery of undercooked meat, let alone raw.

kerouac

We eat cervelas in France, no problem. The French version comes from Alsace, which touches Switzerland.

'Cervelat' is one of the German names, for those wondering about the 's' and the 't'.

suze

While I've had mine grilled at street fairs most often... it's not raw meat even if it is not heated up, correct?

PalenQ think hot dog not 'sausage' in english.

capxxx

Yes, the meat is checked and trichinosis is extremely rare -- from 1997 to 2001, there were 10 reported cases of trichinosis from commercial pork products, which works out to 2.5 cases per year (I looked it up).

How rare is that? There are approximately 62 deaths per year in the US due to lightning strikes.

Nevertheless, most Americans will not eat raw pork.

PalenQ

If it's a hot dog then why the heck do they need some special meat from some special type of cattle only in South America

heck we make hot dogs even out of chicken - and does not 'taste like chicken'

somehow Cervelat sausage sounds a lot better than hot dog

suze

well they ARE better than a normal hot dog, but it's the same idea is my point.

kerouac

Yes, it's just processed slush -- cervelas could be made out of anything, just like chicken mc nuggets.

kleeblatt

According to Wikipedia, the meat consists of beef, pork and rind, as well as spice, salt and a few other things. Organs are no longer used. The imported (Brazilian) intestines are used for the shell. The sausage is smoked for one hour at 65 to 70 °C and then simmered at 75 °C.

Therefore, cervelat has been treated and is not raw.

I know they've been searching desperately for the perfect intestine to replace the Brazilian one. Hope they'll be successful or it's just bratwurst only for now on.

kerouac

There was a scare in Europe at one time that real intestine would be banned for sausage skin, and that makers would be forced to use the horrid synthetic stuff used in a few countries that I prefer not to name.

Michael

According to Bruce Aidell, Complete Book of Pork, p. 33:

"There's a reason that Grandma cooked her pork roast to just short of incinerated--fear of trichinosis. American pork fifty years ago (this was not an issue with European pork (my emphasis)) was occaisonally infected with a parasitic worm called trichina..."

suze

I don't care so'bout the back story, but I am here to tell you there's a reason that Cervelat sausages are "a beloved Swiss specialty". Fabulous.