The Cultural Importance of a Veal Sausage

There are certain experiences a traveler must have before he can truly say he has begun to understand a foreign culture. Whether it’s sitting in a café sipping cappuccino in Italy, spending hours waiting for a train in Britain or relaxing in a biergarten in Germany, there are simply some activities that must be considered prerequisites for a comprehensive understanding of a new culture.

Having spent almost nine months in Germany now, I am quite attuned to my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to assimilating into the culture. For example, my ability to speak the local language pretty well and my appreciation for the fine beers of the region help me to fit in. My total lack of desire to eat foods looking like they are a mixture of Jell-O and baloney and my refusal to take up smoking, on the other hand, tend to set me apart from my German peers. However, in general I try to do whatever I can to fit into my surroundings. I’m not in Germany to act like an American; I’m here to learn about what it means to act like a German.

It was in this spirit of openness and adventure that I suggested to a few of my friends that I would like to partake in one of the most sacred, revered traditions found in Bavaria, the Weisswurstfrühstück. This “white sausage breakfast” is as Bavarian as beer steins and lederhosen, so I knew that spending a year here without trying it would be a big mistake. Unfortunately, when a group of us sat down and tried to come up with a weekend when we could all sit down at the same time and enjoy the traditional delicacies found in the breakfast, we quickly realized that there wasn’t really a weekend free for the entire rest of the semester (this helps to illustrate how ridiculously short the second semester is here). Dejected, we put the Weisswurst on the back burner.

Luckily, however, the idea was revived on Monday when a group of us was sitting at the kitchen table trying to think of fun things to do in the city that didn’t involve drinking beer (Jenn was pretty sick and didn’t think beer was going to help her out much). Given the German culture as it is, this was a pretty difficult task, but in a flash of inspiration, Benni reminded us all of our Weisswurst yearnings and we decided that Tuesday morning was the perfect time to prepare the breakfast since Monday was a holiday here meaning that all classes until Wednesday were canceled—For a student at a university that doesn’t even give us time off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, this was quite a shock at first, but I quickly adapted.—In any case, we were all convinced and I volunteered to get up early and go to the store for supplies.

My trip to the store was pretty uneventful, the woman in the deli didn’t even look at me funny when I asked for 20 Weisswurste, so I guess this sort of thing is pretty normal. I came back to the house and laid out the 20 sausages, 20 pretzels, sweet mustard, and a few glasses for the Weissbier that accompanies the breakfast (in this sense, Benni’s suggestion for a non-alcoholic activity was a little off, but you don’t have to drink the beer, everything just tastes better if you do). Now, the only thing missing were the people who were supposed to be eating with me. Since we had agreed to eat at around 11—Weisswurst after noon is totally verboten—and it was already 11:30, I was starting to wonder a bit and began to walk through the house knocking on the doors of the people who had expressed a desire in sharing breakfast.

Well, I finally managed to wake people up, but it was quite a struggle as almost everyone seemed really hung over. This was puzzling to me as everyone had been sitting in our living room just playing cards and hanging out when I went to bed at 1, there wasn’t any party going on. But, from the stories and photos everyone shared over the next hour, I learned that the party had started after I went to bed when someone decided it would be a good idea to play strip poker. Then, after everyone had lost, someone else decided it would be a good idea to streak across the Studentenstadt. Other people had other good ideas, and most of the friends I was waking up for breakfast had apparently already had breakfast, at 9am before going to sleep for the night. But, this is pretty typical behavior for the StuSta, so I wasn’t too surprised. I just made sure everyone got up and dressed so that nothing would come between us and our Weisswurste.

Knowing nothing about the proper preparation of sausages, I left that part of the meal up to Thomas, who was quickly joined by Flo who couldn’t believe that we would trust someone from Berlin to prepare the most traditional of traditional Bavarian cuisine. Once the sausages were done (apparently you just need to heat them up in water), we all sat down to plates of sausage, pretzel, and sweet mustard. Since it was before noon, I decided a beer was a little much and made myself a Russ’n—a mixture of half sprite flavored soda and half wheat beer.

A Weisswurst is a traditional veal sausage and there are a few important things to note before trying to eat one. Fortunately, I had informed myself previously as to the proper procedure. The sausage is incased in a thin skin, which you definitely do not want to eat. So, you hold the sausage with your fork while making a long cut down the middle. Then, you carefully pin the skin back with your knife and roll the sausage until the skin falls off. It took me a couple of tries before I got this down, but it was worth the wait. I was surprised by the light character of the meat, particularly given its complex taste. Mixed with sweet mustard, it tasted amazing, and the addition of soft pretzels and my Russ’n made a perfect combination. Add to this amazing weather and some good friends and the morning turns out to be just about perfect. After three Weisswurste, two pretzels, and one Russ’n I was absolutely content and feeling like I had taken yet another important step in the direction of better understanding my adopted culture.

The whole gang sitting down to our Weisswurstfrühstück.