What camaiot is
Camaiot is a Mallorcan smoked blood sausage — a traditional blood sausage that differs from the ordinary botifarró by a specific technique: it’s stuffed into the ham cut itself (the camaiot leg, hence the name) and smoked. The result is a smoked, dark-meat sausage with a characteristic spiralled shape.
Production
Camaiot is a product of the matança (household slaughter in late autumn). During the slaughter, pig’s blood is collected and mixed with meat (from the ham, belly and trim), pork fat, salt, garlic, pepper, and seasoned carefully. The mixture is packed into the pig’s leg itself — and slowly smoked over an open fire.
The smoking gives camaiot its characteristic flavour — a combination of smoked ham and dense blood sausage.
Where it’s made, where it’s rare
Camaiot is regionally specific. It’s most common in the north and in the Tramuntana — Sóller, Pollença, Fornalutx, certain Pla villages. In the south of the island and in Palma you find it less. On the menu of a Mallorcan bar in a mountain village you’ll see it; in a tourist restaurant in Palma rarely.
Camaiot is not IGP-protected (unlike sobrasada), but it’s one of the traditional Mallorcan charcuterie products still made by some family producers using the old method.
When you eat it
- Cold: sliced as an aperitif or as part of a “berenar”
- Warm: in stews or sopas mallorquinas — chopped and cooked in
- Pan-fried: briefly seared as tapas with bread
Camaiot at Es Muntant
We serve camaiot occasionally, when our charcuterie producer has it in stock — usually as part of a “variat” or a charcuterie plate. If you want to try it, ask the team — it’s not always on hand and there are seasonal fluctuations.