With the currywurst, she invented the cult food of the Germans

Especially in mixed times, people look for support. They need something that was there before the trouble and will remain after it's over. And whatever can be said against Germany's top bard Herbert Grönemeyer - by the way, it's not so little - these words from the 80s have stood the test of time: "Go into town, what makes you full there?" Exactly, a currywurst. "You came from a shift, what nicer jibbet than how - currywurst. With what fries with you, man, then go twice - Currywurst!"

Is it because the spicy specialty has a truly egalitarian price level? Is it because she comes from a time when Germany looked gray but there was good hope that things would get better? Be that as it may: The favorite snack of the Federal Republicans served as a comfort to the soul for everyone who had no problems with meat consumption, even during the pandemic. Despite all the propaganda from Hamburg to the contrary, they can thank the Berlin snack bar operator Herta Heuwer. On September 4, 1949, she served the first "special curry bratwurst" in her booth on Kantstraße.

The reaction of the guests has not been handed down, but the trained businesswoman and seamstress does not seem to have looked at completely grumpy faces. Ironically, the prerequisite for the creation was the fact that the empire, which its operators wanted to last 1000 years, ended in unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945 after just over twelve years. Without the occupiers from Great Britain, it would probably have taken a few years longer before curry - an import from the English crown colony of India - would have been readily available in Germany.

There are a few contradictions in Heuwer's story from the day she first mixed the sauce for the sausage. According to her memory, it was raining cats and dogs, but according to the weather records, September 4, 1949 was a dry day. Hardly any man appeared at Heuwer who, according to other sources, definitely played a role: the butcher Max Brückner founded a business in Berlin-Spandau after the war and developed a sausage that held together without a protective casing - at that time the casing existed gut, and that was in short supply. Therefore: Heuwer sauce, Brückner sausage, that's the combination.

The Hamburg myth, on the other hand, that the creation goes back to the Hanseatic city, clearly belongs in the realm of fiction. For his novel “The Discovery of the Currywurst”, the writer Uwe Timm invented the snack bar owner Lena Brückner, who cooked the specialty for the first time; he wanted to point out the strength of German post-war women, but his story has no real background. Heuwer's dish, on the other hand, began its triumphal march as early as the 1950s: in 1951, the butchers' guild set quality standards, for example the part was not allowed to be smoked or contain too much water.

If the quality of the meat was too low, the result could not be christened “currywurst”, terms such as “steam sausage with curry” were used as a masquerade, just as a Wiener Schnitzel does not have to be made of veal like a Wiener Schnitzel. Heuwer had their sauce protected under the name "Chillup", based on the components chili and ketchup.

From 1960, a snack bar like Konnopke served the ensemble in East Berlin, for which a man named Gerhard Schröder was very grateful when he took over the office of Federal Chancellor from 1998. To amuse those around him, he swore by goods from this stand ("Great, they have the biggest currywurst there, no.") He protested accordingly loudly when VW announced in 2021 that it would be removing the hit in Wolfsburg from the canteen program.

Herta Heuwer soon ran several stands in Berlin, but she didn't really become rich until her death in 1999. The court had long since established itself throughout the republic in different forms. In the capital, the mania is so widespread that almost every inhabitant knows a very special place where the best version is served - even if it is in a parking lot in the industrial park on the outskirts. Despite their reputation for being only partially healthy and despite wraps, burgers and sushi, little is likely to change.

Because together with French fries, the sausage simply provides an incomparable satiety kick. It doesn't have to end like Grönemeyer: "You'll be blue, but you'll get pretty nauseous from - currywurst." If that thing slips you go home full of currywurst. On my shirt on my jacket - guy, what a **** that is - everything full of currywurst... come on, Willi, Willi, Willi, no, take me home, no, I'll get it if I come home like this, no Willi, man, PLEASE!"

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