Currywurst – fried sausage with tomato sauce and spices
As "Russkaya Germaniya" notes, this dish has been considered the most popular German food tradition for at least the last few decades. The flagship of domestic street food celebrated its 70th anniversary these days – more precisely, the legend of the creation of the dish, which the German population is believed to consume with particularly high frequency, speed, and pleasure.
On September 4, 1949, Herta Heuwer, the owner of a street kiosk located in West Berlin at the corner of Kantstraße and Kaiser-Friedrich-Straße, first prepared and offered customers a dish destined for popularity – a pork sausage. Heuwer, who was born in Königsberg, which at that time, of course, was not Kaliningrad, fried the sausage, cut it into pieces, and poured a sauce made from tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, curry powder, and several other spices.
Eating such a sausage or two, which were previously served in porcelain dishes, then in plastic, and now mostly on a paper plate, is done with a special wooden fork. The side dish can be french fries, just a bun, or even "Currywurst pur" – just the sausage with sauce.
According to legend, Herta Heuwer invented her recipe out of boredom – apparently, too few customers had gathered at her stall on that fateful day. The spices, little known in Germany, apparently came from British soldiers – Heuwer's snack bar was located in the British occupation zone, and the woman herself participated in the reconstruction of Charlottenburg as a so-called Trümmerfrau, who helped clear and rebuild cities damaged by Allied bombings.
The name "Currywurst" itself appeared in the mid-1950s, and by the end of the decade, the sauce recipe was patented. It is believed to contain 12 types of spices, but exactly which ones is unknown; the list can vary. In practice, Currywurst can taste quite different from one street snack bar to another. And it remains a dish that is ordered and consumed about 800 million times a year in Germany: its popularity has long crossed the borders of Berlin.
In her time, Herta Heuwer, who passed away in 1999, said: "The recipe is mine, and there's nothing to argue about." But there are claimants disputing the "first sausage right" in Hamburg, the Ruhr region, and Lower Saxony. Count Alexander zu Schaumburg-Lippe from Bückeburg near Hanover claimed that his castle chef prepared a sauce from ketchup, apricot marmalade, salt, and indispensable curry powder for British army officers as early as 1946.
However, the dish that is eaten day and night on city streets, in simple cafes and factory canteens, and if the chef has enough imagination, even in expensive restaurants, is still considered to be of capital origin. It is no coincidence that the Berlin branch of the State Mint (Staatliche Münze Berlin) issued a commemorative medal in honor of the anniversary: it depicts the inventor of Currywurst and two sausages with sauce, with a wooden fork stuck into them.