Saucisse de Morteau and Montbéliard

Sausages from Morteau and from Montbéliard are important parts of the Franche-Comté food and gastronomy traditions and are well-known all over France too.

Saucisse de Morteau

The Saucisse de Morteau, meaning 'Sausage from Morteau', a town of Franche-Comté, is a traditionally smoked sausage. It is cooked in Tuyé chimneys, very traditional houses found in this region.

The town of Morteau is located at the centre of an area where many of these Tuyé farmhouses can be seen. To produce the famous Saucisse de Morteau, pigs from the region are fattened traditionally (without forcing them).

To obtain the saucisse de Morteau label, the sausage has to be smoked for 48 hours exclusively in one of these tuyé chimneys, using wood only to feed the fire. This is a very slow combustion process. The true Morteau Sausage has a tiny piece of wood attached as well as a ring proving its authenticity.

Saucisse de Montbéliard

Montbeliard is another town located in Franche-Comté offering sausages benefiting also from a quality label. Pig meat is melt with other ingredients to create this sausage that is shorter than its Morteau cousin.

The Montbeliard sausage is also smoked in a tuyé using different types of wood, bringing additional flavours to this Franche-Comté gastronomic product. In France, the Morteau sausage is the greatest rival of this very tasty product.

These sausages are outstanding when cooked soaking in milk with potatoes (the French way!) or accompanied with vegetables as bacon, cabbage, carrots, leeks + garlic, onion, thyme or bay leaves.

A traditional way to prepare the saucisse de Morteau is to first cook some potatoes in a pan filled with half milk and half water. Add sausages in the pan and cook for one hour and a half... Then drain the water and the milk. It’s gorgeous and tasty and will indulge your taste buds.