Memories of Santa Cruz’s palate: The German secret behind its famous sausages

A visit to Portachuelo, in Bolivia’s Santa Cruz department, reveals the German roots behind one of the region’s best-known foods. Dozens of families prepare and sell the town’s sausages, with shops lining the road from the municipality’s entrance to the center.

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The woman, Landívar, said it was a German food preparation. My father experimented and began selling it.

Arsenio Alba, known as don “Pimpo,” said his family has made the sausages since 1970. The story began with his father, who raised cattle and pigs and sold meat locally. One customer, Argentina Landívar, later found work cooking for Guabirá workers in Montero. Alba’s father delivered meat to her, and over time she gave him the sausage recipe, which she said came from German cuisine.

The family began selling the sausages beside the highway to passing travelers. At first, they prepared less than five kilograms of meat. Word-of-mouth promotion gradually expanded the business. Production eventually reached almost 250 kilograms, although the pandemic-era record is now a memory. Alba currently processes about 180 kilograms of meat into sausages.

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At first, we chopped the meat with a machete on a tree trunk. The ingredients are simple: only garlic, cumin and one secret or another.

The ingredients remain simple: garlic, cumin and a few closely guarded touches. Alba recalled that his father initially chopped the meat with a machete on a tree trunk before obtaining a hand-operated grinder and later an electric one. At his home, just three blocks from Portachuelo’s main square, Alba has created a small museum displaying the tools his father used more than half a century ago.

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Do not alter the recipe, much less the cooking process.

For Alba, the product’s success depends on care and a faithfully manual process. He has trained his children to continue the trade without changing the recipe or cooking method. Once stuffed, the sausages cook for about three hours and are smoked in a special oven using curupaú firewood. The family says this step gives the sausages their distinctive flavor and quality. They are sold vacuum-packed.

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It is not rushed or delayed, because this is precisely what gives our sausages their flavor and guarantees their quality.