So this past weekend was Stevenage's annual two day international market. Yep, another venue for overpriced cheese and factory made lace. However it's always worth the trip for the "authentic" German sausage stand - where this year I went for the curry-sausage.
Currywurst is German's top take-away, right up there with kebabs. A pork sausage, usually chopped in a special machine, seasoned with a sweet ketchup and yellow curry powder. Served with Brötchen (a white bread roll).
Currywurst is sold in take-away cafs and outdoor sausage stalls (which is how I first encountered it in Hamburg) but I've heard rumours of restaurant versions turning up from time to time.
Weirdly currywurst has never crossed over into a decent supermarket version to eat at home (correct me if I'm wrong).
Allegedly currywurst sauce was invented by Beliner Herta Heuwer while playing around with ingredients on one boring afternoon. However there are plenty of other currywurst creation myths. Wikipedia sites one where a sausage stall owner in Essen, dropped a can with curry powder into some ketchup and novelist Uwe Timm wrote a fictional account of the origin, proving how much this, now probably unknowable, fact preys on the German culinary consciousness. Fair enough - after all currywurst is a product of the post war years and one tends to think the recent past should be somehow recoverable. Me, I'm just satisfied that for two days of the year currywurst makes it to my town.
Want to experiment? Why not, since each vendor's currywurst varied subtly anyway, much like English fish & chips. Just take a couple of daubs of cheap, runny ketchup and mix on a plate with enough curry powder and paprika to create a visible suspension. Serve with a hot pork sausage cut into 1.5cm rounds. Sprinkle over more curry powder if needed and eat with a white bread roll (dinner roll).
Currywurst is German's top take-away, right up there with kebabs. A pork sausage, usually chopped in a special machine, seasoned with a sweet ketchup and yellow curry powder. Served with Brötchen (a white bread roll).
Currywurst is sold in take-away cafs and outdoor sausage stalls (which is how I first encountered it in Hamburg) but I've heard rumours of restaurant versions turning up from time to time.
Weirdly currywurst has never crossed over into a decent supermarket version to eat at home (correct me if I'm wrong).
Allegedly currywurst sauce was invented by Beliner Herta Heuwer while playing around with ingredients on one boring afternoon. However there are plenty of other currywurst creation myths. Wikipedia sites one where a sausage stall owner in Essen, dropped a can with curry powder into some ketchup and novelist Uwe Timm wrote a fictional account of the origin, proving how much this, now probably unknowable, fact preys on the German culinary consciousness. Fair enough - after all currywurst is a product of the post war years and one tends to think the recent past should be somehow recoverable. Me, I'm just satisfied that for two days of the year currywurst makes it to my town.
Want to experiment? Why not, since each vendor's currywurst varied subtly anyway, much like English fish & chips. Just take a couple of daubs of cheap, runny ketchup and mix on a plate with enough curry powder and paprika to create a visible suspension. Serve with a hot pork sausage cut into 1.5cm rounds. Sprinkle over more curry powder if needed and eat with a white bread roll (dinner roll).
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