Merguez () is a red, spicy lamb- or

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). Beef can be prepared in various ways; Cut of beef, cuts are often used for steak, which can be cooked to varying degrees of doneness, while trimmings are often Ground beef, grou ...

-based fresh

sausage A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs, may be included as fillers or extenders. ...

Maghrebi cuisine Maghreb cuisine is the cooking of the Maghreb region, the northwesternmost part of Africa along the Mediterranean Sea, consisting of the countries of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. Well-known dishes from the region include ''cou ...

. In

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, merguez became popular in the 1960s and 1970s, as Algerian immigrants and the

pieds-noirs The (; ; : ) are an ethno-cultural group of people of French and other European descent who were born in Algeria during the period of French colonial rule from 1830 to 1962. Many of them departed for mainland France during and after the ...

of Algeria settled in the country and opened small shops and restaurants that served traditional dishes like merguez. The popularity of merguez in France was also fueled by the rise of fast food chains like

Quick Quick, as an adjective, refers to something moving with high speed. Quick may also refer to: In business * Quick (restaurant), a Belgian fast-food restaurant chain * Quick (sportswear), a Dutch manufacturer of sportswear * Quick (automobile), a ...

and

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

, which began to offer merguez sandwiches and burgers to cater to their North African clientele. Merguez is a

made with uncooked lamb,

, or a mixture stuffed into a lamb-intestine casing. It is heavily spiced with

cumin Cumin (, ; ; ''Cuminum cyminum'') is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae, native to the Irano-Turanian Region. Its seeds – each one contained within a fruit, which is dried – are used in the cuisines of many cultures in both whole ...

and

chili pepper Chili peppers, also spelled chile or chilli ( ), are varieties of fruit#Berries, berry-fruit plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for their pungency. They are used as a spice to ...

harissa Harissa (, from Maghrebi Arabic) is a hot chili pepper paste, native to the Maghreb. The main ingredients are roasting#Vegetables, roasted chili pepper, red peppers, Baklouti peppers (), spices and herbs such as garlic paste, caraway seeds, c ...

, which give it its characteristic

piquancy Pungency ( ) is the taste of food commonly referred to as spiciness, hotness or heat, found in foods such as chili peppers. Highly pungent tastes may be experienced as unpleasant. The term piquancy ( ) is sometimes applied to foods with a lower ...

and red color, as well as other spices such as

sumac Sumac or sumach ( , )—not to be confused with poison sumac—is any of the roughly 35 species of flowering plants in the genus ''Rhus'' (and related genera) of the cashew and mango tree family, Anacardiaceae. However, it is '' Rhus coriaria ...

fennel Fennel (''Foeniculum vulgare'') is a flowering plant species in the carrot family. It is a hardy, perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves. It is indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean but has become widely naturalized ...

and

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

. Merguez is usually eaten

grilled Grilling is a form of cooking that involves heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above, below or from the side. Grilling usually involves a significant amount of direct, radiant heat, and tends to be used for cooking meat and v ...

. While not in traditional Maghrebi

couscous Couscous () is a traditional North African dish a quote: “Couscous or seksu (Image 1) in Berber language or kuskus in Arabic is by origin a Numidian (the Berber population of Numidia) dish…” of small steamed granules of rolled semolina ...

, it is often used in couscous royal in

. It is also eaten in sandwiches and with

french fries French fries, or simply fries, also known as chips, and finger chips (Indian English), are '' batonnet'' or '' julienne''-cut deep-fried potatoes of disputed origin. They are prepared by cutting potatoes into even strips, drying them, and f ...

and

dijon mustard Dijon mustard () is a traditional mustard of France. It is named after the city of Dijon in Burgundy, which was the center of mustard making in the late Middle Ages and was granted exclusive rights in France in the 17th century. First used in ...

Etymology

There are several spellings in Arabic ( , pl. ; , and ). The hesitation between ''k'' and ''q'' probably reflects the pronunciation , for which there is no standard Arabic spelling; further confusing matters is that in some maghrebi dialects, Arabic

qāf Qoph is the nineteenth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ''qōp'' 𐤒, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew ''qūp̄'' , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ''qop'' 𐡒, Syriac alphabet, Syriac ''qōp̄'' ܩ, ...

is sometimes pronounced as , as an allophone of .Pellat, ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'', 2nd edition It is first attested in the 12th century, as ''mirkās'' or ''merkās''.''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'', Third Edition, 2001, ''s.v.'
merguez
/ref> The Arabic terminology for the food is also the origin of the Spanish names of the foodstuffs ''morcon'' and ''morcilla''.''

Trésor de la langue française The ''Trésor de la langue française'' (; ''TLF''; "Treasury of the French Language"; subtitled ''Dictionnaire de la langue du XIXe et du XXe siècle (1789–1960)'') is a 16-volume dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from ...

''
''s.v.'' merguez
/ref>

Notes

References

* Davidson, Alan, "Merguez", ''Oxford Companion to Food'' (1999), p. 497. * Ch. Pellat,
Mirkās
, ''

Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is a reference work that facilitates the Islamic studies, academic study of Islam. It is published by Brill Publishers, Brill and provides information on various aspects of Islam and the Muslim world, Isl ...

'', 2nd edition.

External links

Merguez recipe
{{Cuisine of Tunisia Algerian cuisine French cuisine Fresh sausages Libyan cuisine Maghrebi cuisine Moroccan cuisine Tunisian cuisine

Etymology

See also

Notes

References

External links