Posted on 02/02/2003 7:07:30 AM PST by dighton
Should they be sucked, split or sliced? Despite the fact that a quarter of a million weisswurst are eaten each day in Munich alone, the subject of how to serve and savour Germany’s most popular sausage has become an issue of intense national debate.
The question has arisen thanks to a new book that has already sold out its first print run. In The Essential Weisswurst Etiquette Guide, its author, Werner Siegert, argues that the correct way to eat Bavarian weisswurst, or white sausage, is to suck it out of its skin, rounding off the messy process with a hearty smack of the lips.
Mr Siegert, a business consultant, admits that the proper sucking technique requires practice if it is not to “disgust” those who are watching. However, he says, the customs and ritual surrounding weisswurst are an essential part of Germany’s heritage and need to be preserved.
“The weisswurst is something special,” he says, “and eating it is a unique experience that binds us together. A lot of Germans have lost track of the etiquette involved.”
The success of Mr Siegert’s 180-page book is testimony to the importance of the sausage in German life. Every self-respecting town and region has a sausage named in its honour, and there are regular legal clashes between sausage-makers as they attempt to copyright their recipes and stop rivals producing doppel-bangers.
No sausage is more steeped in tradition and respect than the weisswurst, produced since the 14th century in the Bavarian heartland of sausage-making, and originally made by peasant farmers with just enough land to keep a single milking cow. The meat from unwanted calves was ground up with salt and water, then packed into a bowel lining. The white colour of the veal gave the sausage its name.
Since then, pork fat and herbs have been added to the weisswurst to enhance its flavour, and it is now served with pride at state receptions and official functions.
It has become the most popular of Germany’s hundreds of sausage varieties and a rich tradition has grown up around it - governing the time of day it should be eaten, which of 300 different types of bread it should be served with, and how it should be chewed and swallowed to extract the maximum flavour.
In Munich’s White Stag restaurant last week, lunchers engaged in a heated debate on the way to eat the sausage. Karl-Heinz Mueller, a pensioner, argued that the sucking technique known as “zuzeln” was the only correct procedure, smacking his lips to make his point.
Across the table, however, Walter Koenig, a businessman, was using his cutlery first to slice, then to peel his Weisswurst. “This is the only way to do it,” he insisted, reaching for a second helping.
Another technique involves slitting the Weisswurst open along one side before removing the skin in a single piece and either eating the sausage whole, with fingers, or cut into slices, with cutlery.
Mr Siegert, 72, who says his book is the culmination of 30 years’ study of the weisswurst, has other stipulations for the perfect sausage experience. “It is essential to have three weisswurst in each serving, not two or four, and they should not be eaten after midday. This dates from when people didn’t have a fridge and the sausages had to be consumed quickly before they went bad.
“Another issue is what to eat with your weisswurst: a strong mustard is as essential as a good red wine is to pasta. There also has to be pretzels and white beer.”
He added: “Germans believe that how you eat your sausage reveals something about your personality. Many a friendship has come to an abrupt end after a carefully prepared weisswurst meal was ruined because of an ill-informed request for ketchup, sauerkraut or a glass of lemonade.”
The first print run of the guide completely sold out within a week and the second print run is due on the shelves shortly, to be closely followed by foreign language versions including English and Japanese.
Don't knock 'em.
I don't care how delicately this little ritual is performed, I"M DISGUSTED!
Now give me some beer-brats browned on the grull, mmmmmm
This sentence is so rich that I'd best leave it alone...(fading away while humming "I left my heart in San Francisco".....)...
That is our household's question when talking about franks or other sausages. My husband was a butcher-boy (made deliveries by bicycle in his German-American neighborhood) when he was in high school.
We love weisswurst!!
I usually cut it in half lengthwise before cooking it. And I usually remove the skin, first, if I am going to be browning it in a frying pan.
What a weenie.
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