One of the hardest things to adapt to when living in a foreign country, is to not be able to walk into your local supermarket and buy your favourite foods. Anyway, not those unique to your country of origin. Like boerewors from South Africa.

The only option if you really can’t live without it, is to make it yourself. That’s if you can find the ingredients.

Thank goodness we managed to locally source all the ingredients to make our own boerewors.

If there was an Austrian alternative to boerewors, it might not have mattered that much. But unfortunately all Austrian sausages are heavily processed, with the consistency of a Vienna – that favourite South African hotdog or lunchbox sausage. Which is quite funny, because I’ve never seen a sausage called a Vienna in Austria. Frankfurters, yes – they are basically a Vienna but with a tougher skin.

Sausages are generally called Würstel. Like a Berner-Würstel (a cheesy Vienna wrapped in bacon). Or a Nürnberger Bratwürstel (herby sausages with a somewhat courser texture).

Würst, on the other hand, refers to cold meats. There is indeed something called Wiener Würst, but it looks more like a salami than a Vienna sausage. What we know as polony, is called Xtrawürst. Which brings me to Leberkäse, a favourite lunchtime snack that looks and tastes a lot like polony, but they say it’s a meatloaf. And it doesn’t contain liver (Leber) nor cheese (Käse). Thick slices are served hot with mustard in a bread roll.

Now you understand why it didn’t take long for us to start craving boerewors after moving to Innsbruck just under six years ago.

Ironically, boerewors has its origins somewhere in Europe. Some say in France, others in Germany or the Netherlands. What is certain, is that boerewors (directly translated as farmers’ sausage, but actually referring to the Afrikaner Boers) is a food legacy of the European settlers who started arriving in South Africa in the 1600s. The Voortrekkers dried it to make droëwors (dried sausage) during the Great Trek of 1835-1846.

To make boerewors where we live in Tulfes, a small Alpine village, is a mountainous feat of its own. The first stop is the one and only supermarket in Innsbruck that regularly stocks fresh, thick pork belly fat. Because we soon learnt that generous amounts of fat are crucial for the texture of our boerewors.

Next stop is a wonderful local butchery in Sistrans, one of our neighbouring villages. By now the butcher knows exactly what cuts of beef and pork we need. And he gives us the sausage casing for free!

Most of the spices that go into our boerewors are freely available in the local supermarkets. We do however sometimes struggle to find malt vinegar.

Now for the recipe that works best for us. It comes from a book called Bakgat Braai by De Waal Davis that was a Christmas present from my brother many years ago.

3 tbsp whole coriander seeds

1.5 kg deboned beef

1.5 kg deboned pork

5 tsp salt

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ground nutmeg

500 g pork belly fat

⅔ cup brown vinegar

90 g sausage casing

Dry roast the coriander seeds before grinding them. Cut the meat into 5 cm cubes before adding the other ingredients, except for the fat and the vinegar, and mix well. Cut the fat into small 3 mm cubes. Mince the meat (on the coarsest setting). Add the fat and the vinegar and mix lightly, but thoroughly. Stuff the casing, taking care not to overfill it (we bought a cheap mincer/sausage maker).

Behind the boerewors curtain (a term used to describe suburbs in South Africa where mainly Afrikaans speaking people used to live) this traditional sausage is mostly braaied (grilled on a fire) and served with “pap en sous” (either a thick or crumbly maize porridge and a tomato and onion sauce). For a normal weekday dinner, I prefer panfried boerewors with mashed potatoes and peas. 

Special word of warning: The making of boerewors is a two-man job and can put strain on an otherwise healthy relationship.