Landjäger
Meat
Top 10 pairings
Landjäger is a semi-dried, smoked and fermented sausage of beef and pork from the Alpine and Black Forest regions of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Alsace. Cured and pressed flat into a slim, rectangular stick, then smoked and air-dried, it eats dense, chewy, smoky and tangy and needs no refrigeration or cooking — the classic pocketable snack of hikers, hunters and soldiers.
Picking a good onedrag
Well cured: dark, pliable, clean smokeOff: slimy, sour or grey-green
Sound and dryBuy itSound to buy and eat cold. Pregnant, a newborn, 65 or older, or immunocompromised? CDC names fermented or dry sausages: heat it steaming hot, or leave it.
Casing and colourDark and dry; the wrinkling is the drying, not age
The bendFaintly greasy to the finger: normal, not slime
The snapped faceEven cured red through, the fat creamy white
Smell at the snapSmoky and meaty; the tang is the ferment, not a fault