Saucisse de Morteau PGI

The history of Morteau sausage is closely linked to that of the tuyés. In short, these are huge, central, pyramid-shaped chimneys with a hood, between 12 and 15 metres tall, which sprang up in the farms of Franche-Comté in the 16th century. And for good reason, as they allowed our ancestors to smoke their homemade salted meats so they would keep for longer and get them through the winter. Passing travellers and merchants were seduced, to say the least. And so, the reputation of this hitherto very local product was established… Achieving a PGI in 2010 was another watershed moment. It set the art of making Morteau sausage in stone.

First of all, pieces of lean and fatty meat are cut and selected exclusively from French pigs raised on whey. Then, they are blended, coarsely chopped, kneaded and seasoned. The stuffing stage is next, whereby the meat mixture is inserted by hand into natural colourless casings which are fastened with a wooden peg.

Finally, it is time for smoking over resinous sawdust for 6 hours in a conventional oven or 24 hours in a tuyé. And then there are Label Rouge sausages, with even more demanding specifications, as the pork meat itself must also be Label Rouge, only seasoned with salt and pepper and smoked in a tuyé for at least 48 hours. The rest is a matter of taste…