By Rafe Calder
The sausage is red because of the pepper. The pepper came from the Americas. That one fact puts a floor under the whole history, and it is about the only part of that history on which every source agrees.
What it is
Wikipedia calls sobrassada a raw, cured sausage from the Balearic Islands. Its core ingredients are ground pork, paprika, salt, black pepper and other spices. The protected name Sobrasada de Mallorca is a different, narrower thing, set out in the registration document held by Spain’s agriculture ministry.
What the specification says
The ministry document, an official source, gives ranges for the raw materials: lean pork 30 to 60 per cent, pork fat 40 to 70 per cent, paprika 4 to 7 per cent and salt 1.8 to 2.8 per cent. Spices or natural flavourings may be pepper, rosemary, thyme or oregano. The meat is chopped to particles under 6 millimetres, mixed with paprika, salt and spices, and stuffed mechanically into natural casings. The sausages then cure in drying rooms until they reach the required physical, chemical and sensory characteristics.
The finished product should have a clearly perceptible paprika flavour. Production and curing must take place on the whole island of Mallorca. The document gives the island’s area as 3,640 square kilometres in most sections and 3,040 in one. Our reading: that is either a typing slip or a real difference, and the document does not say which.
Two pigs
The standard version may use pork from pigs of any breed. A second version, Sobrasada de Mallorca de cerdo negro, must use only the island’s indigenous breed, raised and fattened on Mallorca under traditional extensive or semi-extensive practices. A regional guide listing the regulatory council (a trade body’s page, reproduced by a visitor directory) says the same thing: the protected name covers one variety made with white pig and one made with the native black pig. A food-writing site (Gastronosfera, a magazine) says only products labelled “cerdo negro” guarantee black-pig meat, and that some small producers make black-pig sobrasada without the seal.
The same magazine says white pigs replaced the native black pig around the middle of the 20th century, and that breeders and government later worked to recover the black pig.
The casing names
Shape follows the casing. The ministry document lists the traditional names:
- Poltru or sepultruu: the blind intestine.
- Rissada: the large intestine.
- Culana: the rectum.
- Bufeta: the bladder.
- Bisbe: the stomach.
The sources disagree on some of this. The first Gastronosfera article says bisbe uses the belly. The second says the “ventre” is the stomach, the largest, several kilos and the size of a basketball, and that bufeta is the bladder. Wikipedia says the largest, bufetes or bisbe, use pork bladders. The ministry gives the stomach for bisbe and the bladder for bufeta. We show all of these and choose none. Our reading: “belly” and “stomach” may be one translation problem, but the bladder claim for bisbe is a plain conflict.
Dates in order
- 1403: the Gastronosfera articles say King Martí I of Aragon asked for “sobressaoes” in a list sent to the Sicilian court. One article calls it a copyist’s error for sobressades and the other calls it a shopping list.
- 14th century onward: Wikipedia says the sausage is thought to have originated and spread in the western Mediterranean part of the Crown of Aragon (Sicily, the Balearics, Sardinia) after the 14th century. Wikipedia tags this “citation needed”.
- 15th century: Wikipedia says paprika was added after it was brought from the Americas in the 15th century.
- Before the 16th century: a Gastronosfera article says sobrasada was not red, and took its colour after pepper arrived from the Americas. The second article says it cannot predate the discovery of the Americas.
- Mid-20th century: white pigs replace the black, according to Gastronosfera. Wikipedia says Mallorca followed a low-meat diet until the 1950s.
Side by side: when was the name protected?
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| Gastronosfera, 2014 | Describes a Denominación de Origen run by a regulatory council and does not mention an IGP |
Ministry registration document (MAPA certificate) | Registered 22 June 2021, number GI-1199
We do not resolve it.
The season
Gastronosfera ties sobrasada-making to the pig slaughter, usually around San Martín in November. A second article gives November to February for naturally cured work, when the traditional slaughter, the new paprika and the cold coincide. The regional guide names two fairs: the Fira de la Sobrassada de Campos and the Fira de ses Matances de Sineu. It does not give dates.
Paprika
The council page says a native Mallorcan variety, Tap de Cortí, has been reintroduced in recent years. The second article lists tap de cortí, banya de cabra and paprika from Murcia as the ones experts cite, and says young paprika is preferred.
Other places, other names
Wikipedia says similar sausages are made in Catalonia, in Tàrbena in Alicante province, and in Sicily and Calabria, where the soppressata has been made since the 15th century or longer. It says colonial Algeria knew it as soubressade.
What kind of sources these are
An official ministry document; a trade body’s page reproduced by a visitor directory; Wikipedia; and two pieces from a food magazine, one of which quotes a master pork butcher whom we do not name. A further item, an opinion piece in a local paper, was read and not used.
What we left out
Curing times (the sources give none for the protected name), storage advice, recipes, producers, prices and the council’s contact details.
Quick answers
What does Sobrasada de Mallorca have to contain? According to the ministry document, lean pork, pork fat, 4 to 7 per cent paprika, salt and spices, stuffed into natural casings.
Is sobrasada always made from black pigs? No. The ministry document says the standard version may use any breed; only the “cerdo negro” version must use the native breed.
Where must it be made? On the whole island of Mallorca, production and curing, according to the ministry document.
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