Type | Bratwurst |
---|---|
Place of origin | Germany |
Created by | Herta Heuwer |
Invented | c. 1949 |
Serving temperature | 70°C |
Main ingredients | Pork sausage, curry ketchup |
Currywurst (German: [ˈkœʁiˌvʊɐ̯st] ⓘ [1] ) is a fast food dish of German origin consisting of sausage with curry ketchup. It was invented in 1949 by Herta Heuwer, who began selling it at a food stand in West Berlin. The Deutsches Currywurst Museum estimated that 800 million currywursts are eaten every year in Germany, with 70 million in Berlin alone.
The invention of currywurst is attributed to Herta Heuwer in Berlin in 1949, after she obtained ketchup, or possibly Worcestershire sauce, and curry powder from British soldiers in Germany. [2] She mixed these ingredients with other spices and poured them over grilled pork sausage. Heuwer started selling them at a stand in Charlottenburg, where it became popular with construction workers rebuilding the devastated city. [3]
Heuwer patented her sauce under the name Chillup in 1951. [3] At its height the stand was selling 10,000 servings per week. [4] She later opened a small restaurant which operated until 1974. [5]
Today, currywurst is often sold as a take-out/take-away food, Schnellimbisse (snack stands), at diners or "greasy spoons," on children's menus in restaurants, or as a street food and usually served with chips or bread rolls (Brötchen). It is popular all over Germany but especially in the metropolitan areas of Berlin, Hamburg and the Ruhr Area. Considerable variation, both in the type of sausage used and the ingredients of the sauce, occurs between these areas. [6]
Common variations include the addition of paprika or chopped onions. Halal food stands often prepare currywurst with beef sausage. [6] Often currywurst is sold in food booths, sometimes using a special machine to slice it into pieces, and served on a paper plate with a little wooden or plastic fork, mostly a currywurst fork. [7] It is sold as a supermarket-shelf product to prepare at home.[ citation needed ]
The Deutsches Currywurst Museum estimated that 800 million currywursts are eaten every year in Germany, with 70 million in Berlin alone. [8] [9] [10] The Volkswagen plant at Wolfsburg runs its own butchery, producing about 7 million Volkswagen currywursts per year, serving many directly to Volkswagen employees. [11] [12]
Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is a noted fan of currywurst. [13] By tradition, every candidate for the mayor of Berlin is photographed at a currywurst stand. [14]
The song "Currywurst" on Herbert Grönemeyer's 1982 album Total Egal is a tribute to the snack. [15]
The 1993 novel Die Entdeckung der Currywurst (English title: "The Invention of Curried Sausage", ISBN 978-0811212977) by Uwe Timm was made into a 1998 play and a 2008 film both of the same name. The plot is based on an alternative but unproven theory that currywurst was invented in Hamburg.
The Deutsches Currywurst Museum opened in Berlin in August 2009, commemorating the 60th anniversary of its creation. [4] [10] Curator Martin Loewer said "No other national German dish inspires so much history and has so many well-known fans". [16] The museum received approximately 350,000 visitors annually. It permanently closed in December 2018. [17]
In 2019 Berlin State Mint issued a commemorative currywurst coin celebrating the 70 years since the savoury snack was first sold in Berlin by Herta Heuwer. The silver alloy coin features two currywursts pierced with a wooden chip fork and poured with the sauce (coloured by print), and Herta Heuwer in the background (caption: 70 Jahre Currywurst). The other side of the coin shows the Brandenburg Gate (caption: Münze Berlin, 2019). [18] [19]
French fries are batonnet or julienne-cut deep-fried potatoes of disputed origin from Belgium or France. They are prepared by cutting potatoes into even strips, drying them, and frying them, usually in a deep fryer. Pre-cut, blanched, and frozen russet potatoes are widely used, and sometimes baked in a regular or convection oven; air fryers are small convection ovens marketed for frying potatoes.
The cuisine of Germany consists of many different local or regional cuisines, reflecting the country's federal history. Germany itself is part of the larger cultural region of Central Europe, sharing many culinary traditions with neighbouring countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic. In Northern Europe, in Denmark more specifically, the traditional Danish cuisine had also been influenced by German cuisine in the past, hence several dishes being common between the two countries.
Belgian cuisine is widely varied among regions, while also reflecting the cuisines of neighbouring France, Germany and the Netherlands. It is characterised by the combination of French cuisine with the more hearty Flemish fare. Outside the country, Belgium is best known for its chocolate, waffles, fries and beer.
Bratwurst is a type of German sausage made from pork or, less commonly, beef or veal. The name is derived from the Old High German Brätwurst, from brät-, finely chopped meat, and Wurst, sausage, although in modern German it is often associated with the verb braten, to pan fry or roast. Beef and veal are usually incorporated amongst a blend often including pork. Beef or veal is usual in halal and kosher Bratwurst sausages, which never include pork for religious reasons.
Fried rice is a dish of cooked rice that has been stir-fried in a wok or a frying pan and is usually mixed with other ingredients such as eggs, vegetables, seafood, or meat. It is often eaten by itself or as an accompaniment to another dish. Fried rice is a popular component of East Asian, Southeast Asian and certain South Asian cuisines, as well as a staple national dish of Indonesia. As a homemade dish, fried rice is typically made with ingredients left over from other dishes, leading to countless variations. Fried rice first developed during the Sui dynasty in China.
A frikandel is a traditional snack originating from the Netherlands, a sort of minced-meat sausage, of which the modern version was developed after World War II. The history of this snack in the Spanish Netherlands goes back to the 17th century.
A dip or dip sauce is a common condiment for many types of food. Dips are used to add flavor or texture to a food, such as pita bread, dumplings, crackers, chopped raw vegetables, fruits, seafood, cubed pieces of meat and cheese, potato chips, tortilla chips, falafel, and sometimes even whole sandwiches in the case of jus. Unlike other sauces, instead of applying the sauce to the food, the food is typically placed or dipped into the sauce.
The Carniolan sausage is a Slovenian parboiled sausage similar to what is known as kielbasa or Polish sausage in North America.
Herta Charlotte Heuwer was a German chef. She owned and ran a food kiosk in West Berlin. Heuwer is frequently credited with the invention of the take-away dish that would become the currywurst, supposedly on 4 September 1949. The original currywurst was a boiled sausage, fried, with a sauce of tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, curry powder and other ingredients.
Regional street food is street food that has commonalities within a region or culture.
Curry ketchup, also called Currygewürzketchup in Germany, is a spiced variant of ketchup and a common sauce in Belgium, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.
The Deutsches Currywurst Museum was a museum in Berlin dedicated to German currywurst sausage.
The Invention of Curried Sausage is a novella by German author Uwe Timm detailing the fictionalized invention of currywurst, a popular dish of sausage in curry ketchup in Germany, as well as describing life in Hamburg in the last days of the Second World War. The story follows an unnamed journalist seeking to track down the recipe of the currywurst he had when he was a child. The journalist believes that this particular currywurst recipe was the original recipe and that its creator, Lena Brücker, was the inventor of currywurst. His search leads him to the nursing home where Lena Brücker now lived. Lena's agreement to tell the journalist the story of how she came to invent currywurst serves as the major plot throughout the novel.
Volkswagen currywurst is a brand of sausage made by the German car manufacturer Volkswagen since 1973 at the Wolfsburg Volkswagen Plant — and sold in restaurants in its six German factories as well as in supermarkets and at football stadiums — and given to Volkswagen customers. The sausage is branded as a Volkswagen Originalteil "Volkswagen Original Part" under part number 199 398 500 A.
Cuisine of Berlin describes different aspects of Berlin's culinary offerings. On the one hand, it means the traditional Berlin cuisine of Berlin households with dishes from the German cuisine. On the other hand, often a rustic pub and snack kitchen, which has become increasingly international due to many migration waves since 1945 and 1990. After 2000, numerous top-class restaurants have evolved in Berlin.