page_title: Sausage
section_title: Finland
hierarchical_section_title: Sausage / National varieties / Europe / Finland
caption_attribution_description: English: Mustamakkara(Tapola) and lingonberry jam. Traditional blood sausage from Tampere, Finland. Suomi: Mustaamakkaraa(Tapolan) ja puolukkahilloa.
context_page_description: Sausages are a 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. Some sausages include other ingredients for flavour.
  The word "sausage" can refer to the loose sausage meat, which can be formed into patties or stuffed into a skin. When referred to as "a sausage," the product is usually cylindrical and encased in a skin.
  Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made from intestine but sometimes from synthetic materials. Sausages that are sold raw are cooked in many ways, including pan-frying, broiling and barbecuing. Some sausages are cooked during processing and the casing may then be removed.
  Sausage making is a traditional food preservation technique. Sausages may be preserved by curing, drying, smoking, or freezing. Some cured or smoked sausages can be stored without refrigeration. Most fresh sausages must be refrigerated or frozen until they are cooked.
context_section_description: The generic word for sausage in Finnish is makkara. Several types of Finnish makkara are similar in appearance to Polish sausages or bratwursts but have a very different taste and texture. Most makkara have very little spice and are therefore frequently eaten with mustard, ketchup, or other table condiments without a bun. Makkara is usually grilled, roasted over coals or open fire, steamed (called höyrymakkara) or cooked on sauna heating stones.
  Nakki is a tinier edition of makkara. There are many types of nakki, with almost as much varieties as larger types of makkara. The closest relative to nakki in North-American cuisine is the thin knackwurst. Siskonmakkara, a finely ground light-colored sausage, is usually encountered as the main ingredient of a soup named siskonmakkarakeitto. Another variety is mustamakkara, lit. black sausage, a specialty of Tampere. It is a type of blood sausage similar to the Scottish black pudding. 
  A Finnish speciality is ryynimakkara, a low-fat sausage which contains groats. Pickled makkara, intended to be consumed as slices, is called kestomakkara. This class includes various mettwurst, salami and Balkanesque styles. The most popular kestomakkara in Finland is meetvursti (etymologically this word comes from mettwurst), which contains finely ground full meat, ground fat and various spices. It is not unlike salami, but it is usually thicker and less salty. Meetvursti used to additionally contain horse meat, but hardly any brands contain it anymore, mostly due to the high cost of production. In general, there is no taboo against eating horse meat in Nordic countries, but its popularity has decreased with decreasing availability of suitable horse meat. There is also makkara and meetvursti with game, like deer, moose or reindeer meat. Even a lohimakkara, i.e., salmon sausage, exists. In Finland there are b- and a-classes of BBQ Sausages like Kabanossi, Camping and HK Sininen Lenkki, Blue Loop.
  When a thick slice of a thick (diameter about 10 cm (3.9 in)) makkara is fried and put together with cucumber salad and other fillings between two slices of toast, it becomes a porilainen, named after the town of Pori.
caption: Finnish mustamakkara with lingonberry jam
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