Cervelat

The cervelat is the Swiss name for the French cervelas. Spelt in French with a ‘t’, it corresponds to the oldest form, attested in Rabelais in Le Quart Livre (1552). The spelling cervelas with an ‘s’ appeared later (first witness in 1623 in Charles Sorel) through a change of suffix (-at becoming -as, as in the words cadenas or cannelas) and established itself as the official norm in modern French dictionaries.

Both terms derive from the Latin cerebellum, meaning ‘brain’, an ingredient that did, in fact, enter the composition of this sausage according to several European recipes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Pig’s brain gradually disappeared from the recipes over the twentieth century under the effect of health regulations. The name survives with no link to the present composition. The sausage is recognised by the cross-shaped incision made at both ends before cooking, which lets the edges open in the heat and creates a crisp texture on the grill.

The first mentions of a sausage called cervelat or cervellat in the Basel archives date from the fifteenth century, the same texts that document the beginnings of the Lyonnais and Alsatian cervelas. Over the centuries, the three versions diverged to constitute today entirely distinct products in composition and use: the Lyonnais cervelas is most often eaten warm, the Alsatian is poached in a court-bouillon, and the Swiss is grilled. In Switzerland, the sausage goes by different names depending on the linguistic region: cervelat in French and German, servelat in Romansh. It appears regularly in surveys on Swiss national identity, alongside cheese, chocolate and the army knife, as one of the rare products shared without distinction of language or region.

The cervelat has no codified regional variants. It is produced uniformly across the country to recipes relatively stable from one maker to the next, which contributes to its cultural universality. It holds no European geographical protection.

It is eaten in every social setting: the 1 August barbecue (the National Day), the school picnic, the scout camp, family meals, and so on. It is served with bread and mustard or added to composed salads. Annual consumption is estimated at 160 million units for a population of 8.5 million, about 20 cervelats per person per year.

The cervelat was traditionally stuffed into casings made from the small intestine of Brazilian cattle, whose fineness and behaviour during cooking suited the product. In 2006, health measures related to bovine spongiform encephalopathy led to a ban on the import of these casings. National production was threatened, prompting an unprecedented mobilisation of the media and professionals: questions were raised in the Federal Parliament, and consumer associations took up the issue. Substitute casings of European origin were finally adopted after several years of research. Some professionals believe they can perceive a difference in behaviour during cooking, the ends opening less regularly into a star.