390 Chapter 22
either raw or heat treated. Some well - known
semidry products are saucisse de Montbeliard
and Morteau , both from the Franche - Compt é
Eastern France region. Saucisson sec , typical
pork dry fermented sausages produced in
central and southern France, are important
products in the meat industry, with a produc-
tion of 10,0000 tons in 2002 (Lebert et al.
2007 ). There is a wide variety of saucisson
sec produced in small - scale processing units
without starter cultures (Chevallier et al.
2006 ). Due to their great economic signifi -
cance, safety improvement with preservation
of typical qualities of these traditional sau-
sages were recently carried out, and autoch-
thonous starter cultures have been developed
(Lebert et al. 2007 ; Talon et al. 2008 ).Central European
Germany
Sausage quality is characterized by the use of
valuable parts of the carcass, so that the
drying stage is not an obligately important
feature for quality. Although the manufacture
of fermented sausages began only 160 years
ago, Germany is a major producer of fer-
mented meat products that accounts for 40%
of European production. Most semidry fer-
mented sausages are produced from pork and
beef meat, the wide range of products depend-
ing on the extent of drying and regional tradi-
tions (Schwing and Neidhardt 2007 ). In the
northwestern region, sausages are strongly
smoked, soft, sliceable, or spreadable with
a mild acid fl avor, typical products being
Bregenwurst , a semidry spreadable pork
sausage originally from Lower Saxony, and
Frankfurter Rindswurt , a smoked sausage
made of pure pork. Westphalian salami,
made with fast technology from pork meat,
pepper, garlic, and sometimes mustard seeds,
is a smoked, fi rm, sliceable product with a
distinct fermentation/sour fl avor. The sau-
sages are stuffed into large - diameter casings
and ripened by lowering the temperature2003 ; Benito et al. 2007 ). Other Spanish tra-
ditional dry - cured sausages are Androlla and
Botillo , produced in the Galicia region using
low - quality pork meat seasoned with paprika,
garlic, and sometimes onion; these sausages
are subjected to a smoking - heating process
followed by drying - ripening and are con-
sumed after cooking (Lorenzo et al. 2000 ). In
Portugal, traditional fermented sausages are
mostly made of pork meat from autochtho-
nous pig breeds. Since the eighteenth century,
in the northern part of the country, traditional
Salpic ã o de Vinhais and Chouri ç a de Vinhais
are produced and consumed without further
cooking. Both smoked products are made
from raw pork meat to which wine and spices
are added; in the production of Chouri ç a ,
horseshoe - shaped small pieces of meat and
fat are used, while in Salpic ã o , bigger lean
meat pieces are used (Ferreira et al. 2007 ).
Alheiras , a traditional, smoked, semidry fer-
mented sausage produced from pork and
other types of meat whose origin dates back
to the fi fteenth century, is an important eco-
nomic resource with a production of more
than 500 tons/year (Ferreira et al. 2006 ).
Painho de Portalegre is a smoked dry sausage
containing paprika and garlic produced using
pork meat from the Alentejano pig breed
(Roseiro et al. 2008 ). Most of these products
have been entered successfully into the reg-
ister of Protected Geographic Indication
(PGI).
Greece
Dry fermented sausages ( salami aeros ) are
typical Greek products, with a production of
more than 10,000 tons/year (Samelis et al.
1998 ). Most of them are produced using pork
and beef meat, and they are smoked before
they are ripened (Papamanoli et al. 2003 ;
Rantsiou et al. 2005 ; Drosinos et al. 2007 ).
France
In France, semidry fermented sausages are
only moderately dried, smoked, and eaten