Bündnerfleisch, also known as Bindenfleisch, Grisons Meat or Viande des Grisons, is an air-dried meat that is produced in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland.

Production

The main ingredient is

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quant ...

, taken from the animal’s upper thigh or shoulder, the fat and the sinews being removed. Before drying, the meat is treated with

white wine White wine is a wine that is fermented without skin contact. The colour can be straw-yellow, yellow-green, or yellow-gold. It is produced by the alcoholic fermentation of the non-coloured pulp of grapes, which may have a skin of any colour. Whi ...

and seasonings such as salt,

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the oni ...

and assorted herbs. The initial curing process, lasting 3–5 weeks, takes place in sealed containers stored at a temperature close to freezing point. The meat is regularly rearranged during this stage, in order to ensure that the salt and seasonings will be evenly distributed and absorbed. During a second drying phase the meat is then hung in free-flowing air at a temperature of between 9 and 14 °C. It is also periodically pressed in order to separate out residual moisture: from this pressing Bündnerfleisch acquires its characteristic rectangular shape. Traditionally Bündnerfleisch was not a

smoked meat Smoked meat is the result of a method of preparing red meat, white meat, and seafood which originated in the Paleolithic Era. Smoking adds flavor, improves the appearance of meat through the Maillard reaction, and when combined with curing i ...

. The extent of water loss during the salting and drying processes, whereby the product loses approximately half of its initial weight, is sufficient to confer excellent keeping qualities and a high nutritional value, without the need for any additional preservatives.

Consumption

Bündnerfleisch is served with bread, sliced very thinly. It is often part of the traditional dish

raclette Raclette (, ) is a Swiss dish, also popular in the other Alpine countries, based on heating cheese and scraping off the melted part, then typically served with boiled potatoes. Raclette cheese is historically a dish originating from the canton of ...

, served to accompany the cheese of the same name alongside ham and vegetables. It can also be served in soup, cut into strips or little cubes.

Commercialisation

Most Bündnerfleisch is consumed inside Switzerland, but some is exported within Europe, to Canada and the United States and to Japan.

Variants

Bündnerfleisch appears to be related to the dried meat product from the

Besançon Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerla ...

region of France known as ' brési'. It is also very similar to

bresaola Bresaola ( , , , ) is air-dried, salted beef (but it can also be made of horse, venison and pork) that has been aged two or three months until it becomes hard and turns a dark red, almost purple color. It is made from top (inside) round, and ...

, which is produced in the neighbouring Italian province of

Valtellina Valtellina or the Valtelline (occasionally spelled as two words in English: Val Telline; rm, Vuclina (); lmo, Valtelina or ; german: Veltlin; it, Valtellina) is a valley in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, bordering Switzerland. To ...

; unlike Bündnerfleisch, bresaola is not pressed, though.

Media references

On September 25, 2010, Switzerland's finance minister Hans-Rudolf Merz, reading in parliament a nearly incomprehensibly dry text which had been prepared by bureaucrats, started giggling uncontrollably when he reached a mention of Bündnerfleisch.Nationalrat – Herbstsession 2010 – Sechste Sitzung - 20.09.10-14h30: Fragestunde. Frage Grin Jean-Pierre. Zunahme der Importmenge von gewürztem Fleisch
.

Federal Assembly of Switzerland The Federal Assembly (german: Bundesversammlung, french: Assemblée fédérale, it, Assemblea federale, rm, Assamblea federala), also known as the Swiss parliament (''Parlament'', ''Parlement'', ''Parlamento''), is Switzerland's federal leg ...

. On the television show ''Frasier'', in episode 7 of season 5 (The Perfect Guy) Niles is delighted to purchase Bündnerfleisch at Robert's Gourmet Goodies. He refers to Bündnerfleisch as "Swiss prosciutto".

References