Boerewors

Boerewors is a sausage dish, popular in South African cuisine and Limburgish cuisine. It comes from the Afrikaans words boer ("farmer") and wors ("sausage"). Most non-Afrikaans-speaking persons find it difficult to pronounce authentically, however a reasonable approximation for foreigners is with a trilled r.

History

Boerewors was probably invented about 200 years ago in The Netherlands. It is made from coarsely minced beef (sometimes combined with minced pork, lamb, or both) and spices (usually coriander seed, black pepper, nutmeg, cloves and allspice). Good boerewors always contains a reasonable proportion of fat. There is no such thing as "light boerewors" (but see comments below on cooking). The sausage is preserved with salt and vinegar (and often contains Worcestershire sauce), and packed in sausage casings. Traditional boerewors is usually formed into a continuous spiral, as illustrated on the right, and the spirals can sometimes be immobilized by wooded skewers.

Variations

There are many different varieties of boerewors today, including specialties such as garlic wors, kameeldoring (camel thorn), Karoowors (sausage from the Karoo region), and spekwors (made from cubed pork fat). All varieties are distinctly flavored with coriander and vinegar.

Boerewors is usually braaied (barbecued), but may be grilled in an electric griller, or fried, or boiled. When grilled or braaied, boerewors sheds a great deal of its fat.

Boerewors itself does not keep well unrefrigerated. However in days of yore for long trips or treks, a similar dried or cured sausage called droë wors was prepared instead in a process similar to the preparation of biltong. In modern times, droë wors has become popular in its own right as a snack.