In honor of the Nürnberger

By now you're all thinking I'm the biggest Germanophile in the world, but let me reassure you I am almost done rhapsodizing about Germany (in fact my "Swiss Ms. und Deutschland" wall is almost complete). I will go back to all things Swiss soon enough.

But first I must tell you, in case you have not heard, about a special sausage called the Nürnberger. My first encounter with Nürnberger wurste was in college at the Kristkindl Markt in Nürnberg. I'm still surprised that I even ordered any, meat-suspicious as I was at that time. But I did and and it was, as they say, a revelation. It is a perfectly balanced sandwich – small sausages lined up neatly with just enough crusty roll (though sometimes the ends stick out and you have to eat them first) – and perfectly portable. Add a bit of mustard and you have a gateway sandwich that may have you eating Weißwurst a few years down the road, in spite of carefully-held convictions.

It is a tribute to their tastiness that even the vacuum-packed shelf version for tourists that I brought home with me, which looked like astronaut food when we opened it, tasted good.


And, happily, there is a legend attached to these small sausages. Who could tell it better than the box?: Legend has it the the Nürnberger is so small simply because in this way, it could still be sold after the beginning of the curfew hour – through the keyholes of restaurants. Today the sausage makes its own laws and is under the EU's regional protection of origin. Made only following a strict recipe, with ingredients of the best quality and from the Nürnberg metropolitan region, the Nürnberger Rostbratwurst have earned the distinction "Original"!  All good as long as the sausage keep its laws off my body!