National Dish Comes Wrapped in Foreign Flavoring (Berlin Journal)

1.BERLIN — There is no shortage of contradictions when it comes to this city. Like the rest of Germany, Berlin demands conformity to certain rules (think twice about crossing against the light), but leaves moral judgments up to the individual (no problem with nude bathing in public parks or gambling in storefront casinos). Germans are largely blind to the contradictions, of course, because they are in concert with their tastes and values. But they can be jarring for newcomers, especially Americans, who are often cautioned to cast aside preconceptions, ignore the seemingly familiar terrain of the modern cityscape and brace for the unexpected. That may be especially true when it comes to currywurst, the most popular fast food in the city, some say the nation. The dish, generally eaten from a paper plate with a tiny disposable fork while standing up, is itself a culinary contradiction: a greasy pile of pork sausage (very German), smothered in ketchup (quintessential American), sprinkled with curry powder (thank you, Britain, India).

2.“Currywurst is a culinary symbol of Berlin and of all Germany,” said Birgit Breloh, who said she eats currywurst once a week, stays fit by going to yoga class and is the director of the world’s only Currywurst Museum, near the better known Checkpoint Charlie. Germans, or at least Berliners, look a bit puzzled (maybe offended?) when asked how they could be so health conscious, with their regular walks and emphasis on organic foods, and yet devour the fat-laden dish, often accompanied by a shimmering pile of french fries doused in ketchup, mayonnaise or both. According to Ms. Breloh, currywurst is consumed in huge quantities, with Germany’s 82 million people consuming 800 million curry sausages annually. “You can eat a lot of currywurst without getting fat,” said Mario Ziervogel, the strapping, svelte, owner of one of the most popular currywurst stands in the city, called Konnopke’s, in the trendy neighborhood of Prenzelauer Berg. “You have to move! If I sit and watch TV, all day, of course I will get fat.”

3.In many ways, Germans are misunderstood. From the historic — “How could such a civilized society have produced the Holocaust?” — to the contemporary assessment that Germany is the tightwad of the euro-zone, even while its own economy booms. People here are often determined to explain certain facts about the place as a way to help others understand; that Germans are very guarded about their privacy, for example, and proud of their collective discipline and focus on quality. “It’s true, they see themselves as being the only world-class economy, and maintaining their standards is important to their success,” said John Kornblum, a former United States ambassador to Germany who still lives here and cautions newcomers not to try to psychoanalyze the place. But how does this explain the love for fried pork sausage smothered in ketchup and curry powder? “It is my favorite meal,” said Peter Ossig, 55, a businessman from Stuttgart who barely paused to chat as he popped a steaming currywurst into his mouth. He happened to be quite trim in his full-length blue coat.

4.However, taste is not where the explanation ends, because currywurst is not merely extolled as a meal. It is a political statement, as well. Berlin, in particular, likes to see itself as egalitarian, and currywurst fits neatly with that image. It costs about $2 for a sausage, and the sloppy nature of the dish generally requires diners to stand together eating off chest-high snack tables on the sidewalks (though one restaurant in Düsseldorf supposedly sells the dish coated in gold leaf and accompanied by Champagne). “Currywurst is very democratic, poor or rich love it the same way and at the booth, all people come together,” said Ms. Breloh, as she gave a guided tour of the museum, which tended more toward the kitsch found along a beach boardwalk. Like much of the substructure of modern Germany, currywurst has its roots in the last world war and its aftermath.

5.Ms. Breloh of the museum says the dish was first fixed in 1949 by Herta Heuwer, a Berliner, who like many others in postwar Germany struggled to make ends meet. Sausage, or wurst, has long been a staple, the hamburger of Deutschland. But Ms. Breloh said when Berlin was divided into occupied sectors, Germans saw Americans eating steak with ketchup. They could not afford steak, but they could manage to whip up ketchup. Ms. Heuwer, a rather stout woman who despite her eating habits — or perhaps because of them — lived to 86 years old, traded some alcohol to someone in the British sector for curry powder, or at least that is how the story goes. There is some dispute about this, with Hamburg also claiming to be the birthplace of the now beloved dish. The rest of the recipe is rather straightforward: Plop the sausage in oil and fry until crisp. Slice it into five chunks. Squirt on a mess of ketchup (Ms. Heuwer famously took her ketchup recipe to the grave.) and then shake on curry powder. And that’s it.

6.“It’s good pork sausage, yes, yes, I have it three times a week,” said Guido Neumann, a brick layer with multiple piercings, as he slowly lifted the morsels on his tiny fork during a lunch break. There was a time, not long ago, when it appeared that currywurst might be knocked off its mantle as the most popular fast food, said Eberhard Seidel, who wrote a book about the challenger: the doner kebab, which is effectively the same as a Greek gyro, or a Middle Eastern shawarma, but retrofitted to German taste, slathered in a choice of sauces. “The doner kebab is the story of the survival of the guest workers,” Mr. Seidel said. Germany has a large population of ethnic Turks, brought here as part of a guest worker program half a century ago. The guest workers became residents, had families and when their factory jobs started to disappear many began to sell a dish popular in Turkey, meat cooked on a rotating upright post, sliced off and packed with salad in doughy bread.

7.“It doesn’t look pretty, but it’s delicious,” said Kemal Akar, 19, as he and a group of his buddies took a break from their studies recently to enjoy a cheap lunch of doner kebab in Mitte, the center of the city. The doner is cheaper than currywurst but it ran into some public relations problems, Mr. Seidel said, amid cases of questionable quality meat. It remains popular, some say even more popular than currywurst, especially among students and the poor, but Mr. Seidel said it has slipped as Berlin has become more of an international city, and in some ways, a wealthier city. Now the kebab must compete with specialty soup shops, noodle houses and sushi vendors, to appeal to the taste of diners on the run. But the currywurst continues to hold its own even as noodlebox shops become more popular. “Currywurst,” said David Schultze, 19, a high school student and friend of Mr. Akar, “is a German tradition.”

UNIT 9

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