Hungry?....Currywurst
Posted by Daniela Knoll on Fri, Sep 04, 2009 @ 05:33 PM
Next time you are looking for a quick bite to
eat while in Düsseldorf, try the famous German ‘Currywurst’. Available at most traditional German
restaurants and at ‘Imbiss’ (meal) stands, this dish is immensely popular and
definitely worth a try.
From prominent politicians to the common man,
every German seems to have a favorite place to get their Currywurst. But a word to the wise: don’t ask for extra
spicy (“extra-scharf”) until you’ve tried the regular dish. If you see a crowd at an Imbiss, it’s a good
sign that the food is excellent.
Even the New York Times ran an article on
Currywurst in August. It may provide you
with some extra incentive to have a taste during your next trip to Germany. In any case, if you already have a favorite
Currywurst spot in Düsseldorf, make sure to add your comment to this blog!
‘Typical German Imbiss’
The Wall Street Journal By ROMAN KESSLER, AUGUST 27, 2009 (excerpt)
The Craze Over Currywurst
Germany's favorite fast
food has a cult-like following -- and its own museum. Now the popular
proletarian dish is popping up on menus across the world.
Many dishes claim to be
part of a people's heritage - but few have their own museum. In Germany, currywurst, the traditional
proletarian snack of sliced pork sausage swimming in a curry-tomato sauce,
merits a memorial.
Currywurst is as German as
pizza is Italian, hot dogs are American, and fish and chips British. This
month, the dish was immortalized in the new Deutsches Currywurst Museum in
Berlin, a sausage shrine dedicated to all things currywurst, including sausage
sofas, a curry "spice chamber" and a movie montage of all-time
currywurst cameos.
A common German street
food, called currywurst, has found its way to New York's trendy East Village
foodie scene, WSJ's Roman Kessler reports.
What's all the craze over
a seemingly simple concoction?
No two Germans will likely
agree on the perfect currywurst. Some like theirs with the sweet taste of
Indian curry, others with a touch of mustard powder, and still others with a
hot chili or lemongrass-flavored curry. Then there's the matter of how you take
your currywurst -- with French fries, white bread or a whole-grain loaf. But
regardless of the various varieties and debates on which currywurst stand takes
top dog, all will agree that dish is an integral part of German culture.
The Deutsches Currywurst
Museum traces the invention of the dish back to post-war Berlin in 1949. At the
time the dish was known as "poor man's steak" because most Germans
couldn't afford a proper chunk of meat.
According to currywurst
legend, a witty German housewife named Herta Heuwer got her hands on some
English curry by trading it against spirits with parched British soldiers.
Experimenting with the spice in her kitchen, Ms. Heuwer soon concocted the
cheap yet filling dish now known as currywurst: grilled sausage, sliced, with a
gravy-like sauce containing English Curry and stewed tomatoes.
On a cultural level, the
dish came to represent the everyday German. Politicians looking for a bit of
street cred started posing in pictures with the dish -- a sign that they were
one with the proletariat. When the federal government moved from Bonn to Berlin
in 1999, Germany's then-chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, loved to picture himself
as a currywurst aficionado.
Now, star chefs such as
Daniel Boulud are even putting currywurst on their menus. At Mr. Boulud's new
French-American brasserie in downtown Manhattan, DBGB Kitchen, he serves the
dish with a turnip comfit for $12.
"I grew up on
currywurst," says Andre Wechsler, a native German who recently opened a
currywurst restaurant in New York's East Village. Mr. Wechsler, who moved to
New York six years ago, worked with his German friends to develop the perfect
sauce. Of all things German, "I just missed currywurst," he says.
