Archive for the ‘Culture & Art’ Category

It’s no secret that we German’s love our sausages — or wurst. Being trilingual, I can’t help but make jokes about how the wurst meals here are the best, or how the wurst food you get in Germany is better than what you can have anywhere else.

Naturally, it’s all wrong, since wurst is correctly pronounced with a hard “v” sound, but while the jokes may be terrible, the sausage is still legendary.

In fact, one type of wurst is considered by so many to be the best that now it has its own museum near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Currywurst, a spicy snack popular throughout the country, is being elevated to its own special cultural attraction in a building on Schützenstraße 70 called Deutsches Currywurst Museum, open from 10 am to 10 pm daily with an entrance cost of 11 euros ($14 USD).

Shockingly, we Germans are taking down an estimated 1,500 of these currywursts per minute. I’m not kidding — that’s 800 million currywursts consumed annually, and I pull down my fair share.

Most currywursts are sold on the streets, with the largest concentration of currywurst vendors located in Berlin. Many also believe that the formulation for the special tomato curry sauce was invented by a Berliner, Herta Heuwer. This makes it no wonder that the German Currywurst Museum is located at the very heart of the city.

Inside the museum, visitors are greeted by displays dedicated to all of the many varieties of currywurst. You can see displays of the different meal combinations, such as sliced sausage drenched in sauce with a bit of potato salad, or a hefty currywurst hot dog jutting out from its deliciously soggy bun.

You will also find that you are very hungry as you pass through the exhibits, because the museum has something for all of your senses. There is an audio track of sizzling sausages echoing overhead, and a scent machine infuses the air with the odor of fresh currywurst.

It’s all a bit over the top, which is why you absolutely have to see it all to believe its real. Go, see, buy a snack, and be sure to send me a copy when you get your photo taken in the life size currywurst truck in the final element of the museum!

—Marcus

In Germany, we don’t eat three square meals a day. At least, not by American standards. There’s no piping hot breakfast, and we eat our cake in the middle of the afternoon instead of after dinner.

Of course, we Germans are hardly going hungry. In fact, we do quite well with our German food. Our secret? It’s our four meals a day. ;-)

Breakfast is known as Frühstück, and traditionally served cold on a specially carved board. Often this is shaped like an animal, and these boards are usually bought from local artisans in the town markets. A typical German breakfast consists of bread (of course!) with cheese, yogurt, fruits, a boiled egg, or muesli. Coffee, milk or tea is more common than juice.

Lunch is the main meal of the day, and we take the Mittagessen very seriously. Eaten between noon and 2 pm, it usually consists of soup or salad followed by a main course and a light dessert of custard, fruit salad, or ice cream. Drink whatever you like with lunch, including alcoholic beverages, but save a bit of thirst for the strong coffee that traditionally closes the meal.

Later in the afternoon, it is time for the third meal, Kaffee und Kuchen. This is a sit down affair with coffee or tea and pastries. Eaten between 3 – 5 pm, all the rich cakes and cookies others might think of as desserts we take care to consume at our leisure well before the evening meal.

The final meal of the day is generally eaten at around 7 pm. Known as Abendessen (or Vesper in the south-west), it is traditionally a cold meal of bread, cheese, and meats eaten at home. Modern families having been shifting it to a large, hot meal as more and more German parents work.

Evening meals in restaurants, of course, will be hot, with multiple courses and large portions. After dinner liqueurs are common, or there is always to option of a little espresso to counteract the effects of a heavy meal.

As you can see, although we don’t have the same dining traditions as other countries, we Germans are certainly not starving. ;-)

Guten Appetit!

—Marcus