Cervelat, also cervelas, servelat or zervelat, is a sausage produced in Switzerland, France (especially Alsace and Lyon), Belgium, the Netherlands and parts of Germany.

It was first recorded in 1552 by Rabelais,[3][4] and is derived from zervelada, a Milanese word meaning a "large, short sausage filled with meat and pork brains."

[citation needed] The taste of the sausages depends on the region, but generally they are similar to that of a frankfurter, but with a smokier flavour and a texture brought about by its fat shape and the tightly wrapped natural casing.

[2] Some 160 million cervelats weighing 27,000 metric tons are produced in Switzerland annually, which is equivalent to a consumption of 25 sausages per person each year.

The ingredients are finely minced in a cutter, packed into beef intestines, smoked for an hour and then cooked by boiling for a short time.

[2] However, beginning on 1 April 2006, the European Union banned the import of many animal parts from Brazil as a measure aimed at preventing the spread of mad cow disease.

[9] In January of that year, the Swiss meat industry announced that a national "cervelat task force" had failed in an exhaustive search for an acceptable alternative to zebu intestines.

"[2] The cervelat production crisis was covered closely by the Swiss media and in a newspaper poll, 72% of those surveyed said the "cervelas, as they knew it, had to be saved.