Currywurst is more than just a sausage: it's one of life's experiences--in Germany, at least, where you can buy one practically anywhere at any time of day. A currywurst doesn't cost much and doesn't take long to eat. Just long enough, in fact, for a chat with other currywurst connoisseurs. Currywurst may be everywhere, but it is always special. This urban snack has cult status and econmic importance. Its place in German culure is eulogized in songs, films and literature. Our exhibition looks at this culinary institution from many sides (or should we say ends?)...
So begins the main exhibit at the Deutsches Currywurst Museum in Berlin. This was my final museum, and now I'm back in my hotel by the Tegel airport. If you go to Berlin (or anywhere in Germany, really) you must eat currywurst. Even if you're not sure you like it the first time, it gets into your soul. I don't feel the same about Doener Kebabs or Turkish Pizza or Jaegerwurst. Currywurst, despite the fact that it's kinda disgusting, is uniquely deee-licious.
The museum itself? Inspired. It touches on all aspects of currywurst kultur. Jokes about currywurst, what the inside of a fast-food cart (Imbiss) looks like when it's properly tricked-out, how "green" currywurst is because it's served in a paper dish that breaks down in the environment. In fact, the only element that was missing was the spiritual one, and I imagine that the curators take it for given that any visitor--anyone who would take time out of a busy schedule and slap down $12--probably already has a spritual relationship to currywurst.
They only sell their t-shirts in sizes L, XL, and XXL.
Some folks think that currywurst is just katsup and curry powder on a brat, but that's just wrong. There are a whole set of ingrediants (and I got the recipe if you want it) that go into the sauce. The origins of this gastranomic triumph have long been disputed. Some argue that it was Hamburg's Lena Bruecker who accidentally "discovered" the sauce in 1947 when she tripped and fell while carrying a mixture of black-market acquired ingrediants.
The museum takes the position, however, that it was Herta Heuwer of Berlin who created the sauce in '49. She refused to surrender her recipe. A moment of silence please for the Gnädige Frau Herta Heuwer. She has given a great gift to humanity.
