Ode of the Cervelat, the favourite sausage of the Swiss.
Seldom is a food as indispensable in Swiss households as the cervelat. This little wonder sausage was mentioned as early as 1552 and has dominated the menu of entire generations ever since. Cold or warm, straight from the pack, with or without the skin, grilled, scalded, sunk in sauce, made into salad, fried in the pan, as cold provisions on a hike or roasted on a hazelnut branch over the campfire. It's cheap, easy to use and easy to store in the refrigerator. Cut into small wheels, incised crosswise, made into Julien, split in the middle, provided with legs at the ends: it is brought into the appropriate shape for every processing purpose. The grilled cervelat is the indispensable ingredient of every public festival, market or sporting event. In Switzerland, 160 million cervelats are produced annually, around 21 per capita of the entire population. The Swiss Cervelat is unique. The German bockwurst is similar to the cervelat, but is not grilled. In contrast to the bratwurst, which is normally part of the standard menu in many restaurants, I've never found a cervelat dish on a menu. Somehow it does not get rid of its reputation as cheap food for the poor, completely wrongly. Anyone who had the opportunity to bite into a hot and really juicy grilled cervelat will fall in love with the small sausage.
The culinary highlight of the little man: The worker cordon bleu:
Skin a cervelat (it is easy), cut in two lengthways. Place a slice of Gruyère or Appenzell cheese between the halves, which shouldn't be much wider than the sausage. Wrap the whole thing in fried bacon so that it holds together well. Do not fry too hot in a pan without added fat until the cheese begins to melt. Goes with any type of side dish.
-Ana Figuerola
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