This is of course a play on words. I am not a big fan of wurst - the meat of choice for many Germans. Wurst, or sausage, is generally made from pig meat. Here, the pig rules. I probably won't eat pork again when we get back to the US for some time. Pork schnitzel, pork chop, pork loin, ground pork, and pork sausage round out the daily diet of pork offerings. But wurst, in particular, is one of the most often associated with the German diet, and is actually eaten as such. But when one says wurst here, it does not mean the Johnsonville brats that are often barbecued in the states. Here, there are literally hundreds of types of wurst.
In our part of Germany, there are many corner butchers, known as Metzgerei, about every other block or so. When you walk in, you immediately can see that the variety of sausages are tremendous. The most plentiful category of wurst is Wurst-Aufschnitt. Germans traditionally only eat a big lunch and have vespers for supper, a light meal of cheeses, sausages, ham cuts and bread. Wurst-Aufschnitt is this sausage for vespers, cut into slices as thin as peperoni. There are Fleischwurst, made from veal and pork; Mettwurst, pork and beef with a coarse feel; Teewurst, same ingredients as before but with a smooth feel; Leberwurst, veal and veal liver make up this sausage; and Salami, many varieties made of many different meat products.
Many sausages are also served whole, not sliced like peperoni, and can vary in size from a short 3 inches to nearly 1.5 feet long. Weißwurst is a Bavarian smooth white sausage made of veal and pork bacon (hear also called speck, but not like our bacon - more like ham. Speck is also served on its own as part of the evening snack). Bratwurst is ground pork and veal often with a coarse feel. The Frankfurter is like our hot dog, and Jägerwurst is a dried sausage kinda like Slim Jims. Rotwurst is a reddish smaller diameter sausage, and Bockwurst is a sausage that has a tough outer casing that gives a pop when you bite into it.
Sausage is often eaten for breakfast, lunch and the evening light meal. Weißwurst is the traditional breakfast meat since it is not smoked or cured in any way. Before refrigeration was common, this sausage would go bad if kept till evening. Lunch sausages are more of the brat form and eaten with potato salad and served on a round bread roll with mustard. And we already mentioned about the evening meal. Another popular quick bite here (and common in Southern Germany and Austria) is a meat called Leberkäse, which literally means liver cheese and is very much like Spam, and it is served on a round roll. It is made from corned beef, speck and onion and has neither liver nor cheese as part of its ingredients.
So I guess it would be surprising, then, to learn that one of the things I miss from America is sausage. I really miss the taste of breakfast sausage, either the sausage link, or bulk, browned and baked into an egg casserole. I also miss Italian sausage. So far, we have not been able to find anything that can act as a suitable substitute for either of these types of sausage. Otherwise, I am not a sausage eater, having trouble with the consistency and idea of it all and how it is prepared, so for me, there is a large part of German cuisine that I have to leave to my family to explore. They, on the other hand, do not have any of the problems I do with the local meats. :-)
The word for today is sausage: die Wurst (vurst as in first when combined with another word like in bratwurst, or sometimes as voorst when said alone.)
The question today is "What rounds out the typical German diet?"
Auf Wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
