BERLIN (AP) — Bite-sized bliss. The currywurst is considered a fast food delicacy in Germany and a perfect treat before a competition.
UEFA has confirmed that football fans from across Europe will find this tasty German invention in stadiums across the country during the European Championship, which starts on Friday.
The pork sausage, topped with curry sauce, is usually presented on a spotless white cardboard plate with a two-pronged plastic fork. It can be served with or without the peel. Visiting fans will have developed their own preferences by the end of the month-long tournament.
Although its origins are disputed, the currywurst holds a special place in Berlin’s food culture.
“In our city everything revolves around currywurst, and I don’t think our city can do without currywurst. Anyone who comes to Berlin should try currywurst to know what the city is about,” says Linda Konnopke, who helps run her family’s popular fast-food restaurant in the German capital’s Prenzlauer Berg district.
Her great-grandparents Max and Charlotte Konnopke first started selling sausages from their portable grill in 1930, and the family business has since grown into a household name famous for its currywurst, which Günter Konnopke, their son, created in Eastern Europe in 1960. Berlin introduced. was an immediate hit. The recipe is still a well-kept family secret.
“Our absolute highlight is our skinless currywurst. That’s our biggest seller,” said Linda Konnopke.
The currywurst is usually cut into convenient bite-sized portions. It can be doused with ketchup and dusted with curry powder, but some sellers – such as Konnopke’s – will use their own specific curry sauce.
A woman named Herta Heuwer is largely credited with its invention. Heuwer was one of thousands of Berlin’s “Trümmerfrauen,” or rubble women, who helped clean up the rubble left behind after World War II, and then she ran her own fast-food business in the Charlottenburg district in the west of the city.
Some say that Heuwer was bored one day and decided to experiment with the ingredients she had; others said she was out of mustard and needed an alternative. Anyway, she claimed to have invented the currywurst on September 4, 1949.
Berlin declared itself the ‘currywurst capital’ on a plaque honoring Heuwer where she sold her first currywurst, but there are rival claims from Hamburg and the Ruhr area in western Germany.
During the German Cup final in Berlin last month, Kaiserslautern fan Luisa Albert said she prefers the currywurst in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate. As stadium food, she said, it’s always a winner.
“Currywurst is the best thing you can eat before a race,” she said. “It gives you the power to cheer and celebrate and do everything.”
Fans attending matches at Berlin’s Olympiastadion can get their currywurst from Hertha Berlin supporter Ollie Brandt, who has been offering fast food outside the stadium for more than 40 years.
Brandt prides himself on offering currywurst sausages made from another old family recipe, but he doesn’t care much for currywurst from outside the capital.
“For example, if you go to the Rhineland, you get a grilled sausage spread with a kind of curry sauce that is sold as currywurst. But that’s not a currywurst,” Brandt said, holding up a package of his own sausages. “This here is a real currywurst.”
Brandt said fans will simply have to try the different types and styles to determine their favorite.
“We have I don’t know how many thousands of snack bars throughout Berlin, East and West. Everyone does it differently. It doesn’t taste the same anywhere, but it is simply unique,” says Brandt. “You have to try it.”
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