Cervellatina sausages are very popular: a long, thin sausage which is made spicy by plenty of chilli pepper and which is consumed both as a dressing and also as a meal.
Pig sausage in Campania is usually longer and thinner than in the other parts of Italy, and it is called “cervellatina”; the etymology of the name is probably French from “cervelas”, brain, and an ingredient in ancient times.
Today the sausage is made exclusively of the fat and lean parts of pig meat, either ground in big pieces or event cut (on the tip “’e curtiello” of the knife), with salt and dried spices, amongst which a lot of chili peppers. It keeps its typical characteristic though, a diameter of 1, 2 cm and a length of even a whole meter.
The preparation is to butcher the meat, ground it and mix it with aromas, especially black pepper, it is then dried and made into sausages with very thin pig intestine. It is tied with vegetable fiber cord. The product is very common and famous in the whole region and it can be purchased in every butcher shop, both in the small towns and the big cities.
Text and Photo courtesy of Regione Campania
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