Merguez

Merguez (pronounced mair-GHEZ) is a fresh, spicy sausage from Maghrebi cuisine, typically made from lamb, beef, or a combination of both. The uncooked meat is stuffed into a casing of lamb intestine and seasoned heavily with cumin and chili pepper or harissa, which give the sausage its signature heat and red hue. Other spices like sumac, fennel, and garlic are also commonly added. The sausage is usually grilled. In France, merguez gained popularity during the 1960s and 1970s after Algerian immigrants and pieds-noirs from Algeria opened small shops and restaurants serving traditional dishes. Its popularity there was further boosted by fast food chains such as Quick and McDonald's, which began offering merguez sandwiches and burgers to appeal to North African customers. While not part of traditional Maghrebi couscous, merguez is often used in France in couscous royal. It is also eaten in sandwiches, often paired with french fries and Dijon mustard.

The word has several Arabic spellings, including مِركس (mirkas, plural مراكس marākis), مِركاس (mirkās), مَركس (markas), and مِرقاز (mirqāz). The variation between k and q likely reflects the pronunciation /ɡ/, which lacks a standard Arabic letter; in some Maghrebi dialects, the Arabic letter qāf is sometimes pronounced as /ɡ/, an allophone of /q/. The Arabic term for merguez is not the origin of the Spanish words morcon and morcilla, which derive from Latin 'murcus' or 'morticinus'.