May 24, 2023 • 39 mins
This sausage-based, tomato-smothered, curry-sprinkled street food comes in many iterations. Anney and Lauren dig into the history and culture behind the phenomenon that is currywurst.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
Reese and I'm moren Vocal.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Bam, and today we have an episode for you about
curry Worst.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, O, craving cravings, craving scraps O. See.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Okay, this is a dish I don't think I've ever
actually had. But I was getting such cravings during the
reading and especially the looking at photographs in the middle
of the reading, that for sure I had curry for lunch.
I mean different, different thing. But I was like, look,
I don't have sausages, I don't have ketchup or fries,
(00:43):
but I but I can do the curry.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
One of these things I can't accomplish. Yes, yes, I
I love curry Worst. I've I've had it several times.
I did spend a little while in Germany, and I
remember one of the people I was traveling with. I
will say it was kind of picky. Okay, it was
(01:11):
kind of picky, and we've been traveling across Europe. And
when she tasted curry Worst as like an American who
had been I guess missing French fries, sausage. She said,
the taste, the taste, she just was like moved she
(01:31):
was transported. Yeah, all right, yeah, yeah, it's just like
a very satisfying It makes you feel like, oh, this
is so nice. Yeah, that's what I can say. Oh
that's great.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well, yeah, I hope, I hope I got to try
some some soon. We don't have a lot of German
restaurants around Atlanta. For all of the amazing food that
we have, it's relatively difficult.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah. Yeah. Strangely enough, I know a couple of German
restaurants that are kind of like further north. Too many
in that case, I either yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
This being more of a street food situation anyway, we're
getting ahead of ourselves. Yes, in Germany, September fourth is
National Curry Worst Day, supposedly the anniversary of the dish's invention,
though that is slightly contentious, and I'm pretty sure that
specific date was just made up by this museum that
(02:33):
we're going to talk about. I could be wrong. They
might have had good facts. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Mmmmmmm, well, I'm very excited to talk about the museum. Yes,
oh my heck, yes, and many contentious facts we had.
But I guess this brings us to our question. Yes, yes,
Curry Worst what is it?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, curry worst a type of street food and or
fast food that can come in like a few different iterations,
but you're basically looking at a dish of sausage that's
simmered to cook it through and then either grilled top
or pan fried, served hot and often sliced crosswise, topped
with a thick spiced tomato sauce and a heavy sprinkle
(03:21):
of curry blend powder. So like you've got like a
like a chew and a crisp and maybe a snap
from the savory sausage, and then hopefully a little bit
of shar from the grill or the pan, and then
like the tangy, warming savory flavors from that smooth sauce
and the seasoning. Maybe it's served with or on a roll.
(03:43):
Maybe there's fries on the side. Maybe you're drinking a beer.
I don't know what you're up to. It is most
commonly ordered from like stands and shops while you're out
and about, you know, like a sort of like power
snack to be eaten pretty much on the spot before
continuing on your adventures. It's a it's a really really
good little snossage snack, you know, it's like having not
(04:07):
had it. Uh, this is what came to my mind.
All right, So, like I never got a good idea
of what exactly Scooby snacks are, but I think ideally
it should be this.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Oh does that make sense? Yeah, like a really like
you need some energy. Yeah, yeah, burst of like a
savory kind of spicy yeah thing.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, you need it. You need it to like pump
you up a little bit. You need you need that
like bravery to face the rest of your day or
night or you know, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, yeah that Yeah, I think that's a good Okay,
that's a good comparison. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
It's not just because I mentioned Scooby Doo, No way, never.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
All right.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, debates about the right way to do curry worst
can also be heated along with the spiciness of the sausage.
Lots of people have their favorite style or like favorite stand,
and all other stands are dead to them. I don't
know it's a thing, but okay. Perhaps the most common
(05:21):
and or traditional iterations involve broughtworst or bockwurst, which are
types of sausage made from pork and or veal that
are ground variously fine and mixed with various spices. There
are a lot of styles, from fresh to smoked, encased
to skinless, and there are regional and personal preferences at
(05:43):
work here, like, for example, if you're in Berlin, where
the dishes hypothetically from, you're more likely to find sausages
with casing served in shops from the west, and sausages
without served in shops from the east. Just a thing,
historical thing. Especially recently, there are more options available, including
(06:04):
like halal beef sausages and vegetarian variations stuff like that.
The sauce can vary pretty widely too, from like I
bought some curry flavored ketchup to I bought ketchup and
put curry powder on it to I made this entirely
from scratch, including cooking down tomatoes, toasting my own curry
(06:24):
blend spices, and puring and sauteed onions. There's a range
in there, so yeah, recipes that I've seen generally involve, okay,
your tomato element either tomatoes or paste or ketchup, an
alium element of onion or garlic, either fresh or powdered.
The seasonings like salt, wista, shear sauce, sugar, or honey
(06:47):
and vinegar, spices like black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, paprika, cayenne,
a mustard powder or mustard sauce. It's a matter of
personal preference whether it's more tangy or sweet or salty
or spice. See, but it will involve some combination of
those elements, and lots of places do have like a
spice scale to let you choose how hot you want
(07:08):
the sauce to be. Yeah, yeah, you might add your
curry blend to the sauce or it might just be
a sprinkle on top of the dish. It's typically a
Madras style powder, so like earthy and warm and like
a lovely orange yellow color, involving things like coriander, cuman, fenegreek,
(07:29):
curry leaves, black pepper, cassia, cinnamon, green cardamom, turmeric, chili peppers,
and then maybe stuff like bay leaves, fennel seeds, star annis.
It's curries are their whole own We've talked about a
little bit before. That's yeah, you can do what you
want on those, so again results may vary, and then
(07:51):
most stands will have a few condiments that you can
add to taste, like like like more cayenne pepper, some
chopped chilis or onions, some hot So it is most
often a street food that'll come in like a little
paper tray with like a little wooden spear, but also
appears in like elevated situations too in fancy restaurants. Either way,
(08:12):
you usually get fries or a bread roll with it,
often a specific type called a boutchin. I'm not sure
if I'm saying that right. I did just look it up.
I don't know German, but yeah, it's got like a
crisp crust and like a chewy, soft interior. Or maybe
you might get another Germany side, like like potato salad
or a pickle, maybe a dab of mao or mustard
(08:35):
along with all that too, a beer or sparkling wine
are common accompaniments. And it is a genuinely a cultural phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yes, oh yes, And also I gotta have sparkling wine
with curry worst Now that's just yeah, that's on the
horizon for me. Yeah, that's that's right, right, Like fried chicken.
I imagine that would be just so transcendent. Well what
(09:09):
about the nutrition?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Ah, it is a calorically dense food. Uh, you know,
a good punch of fats and proteins. Eat a vegetable
that doesn't ketchup. Yeah, drink some drink some water.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Oh see our ketchup episodes we did talk about. Well,
we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Oh gosh, we do.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Okay, all right. So, according to the BBC, more than
eight hundred and fifty million curry worst were consumed in
Germany in twenty sixteen, which they said was an annual trend.
Seventy million of those were in Berlin specifically, although I
saw other things that were saying it was like way
more concentrated in Berlin. A two thousand and eight said
(10:01):
he found that eighty percent of German respondents declared that
currywurst was an important part of their diet.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Wow. There, I read that there are some like two
thousand stands that serve it in Berlin alone, and in
surveys from cafeterias around the country, it was named the
most popular dish served alongside crinkle cut fries for twenty
(10:29):
six years in a row as of twenty seventeen. Wow right, yeah.
The Guinness record for the largest serving of currywurst was
achieved in twenty ten. It weighed one hundred and seventy
five kilos that's like three hundred and eighty six pounds.
It consisted of a three hundred and twenty meter long sausage,
(10:52):
which is like a little bit over one thousand feet.
Oh wow, that was It was cooked in a custom
grill as you burn apps can imagine. Plus there were
involved ninety five kilos that's two hundred pounds of tomato
sauce and a full kilo that's two pounds of curry powder.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
That is bananas. Okay, that's almost like a mile long.
I could be running a race like this day. Wow. Okay, yeah,
well this brings us to the museum we mentioned, oh yeah, yeah,
(11:37):
uh huh yes, because from twenty nine to twenty eighteen
there was a Deutsch's Curry Worst Museum. Uh listeners, you
got to write in yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
One of their like like slogans that I think was
up on a wall or a banner perhaps upon entry,
said Curry Worst is more than just a sausage fun
of life's experiences in Germany.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Experience experiences.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah. It apparently took the creators four years and five
million euros to bring the project to life. Over the
course of its existence, it hosted over a million visitors
and then yeah, their lease on the spot ended and
they reportedly just like put everything in storage with the
idea of making it a traveling exhibit. But I'm not sure.
I'm not sure what's going on with that. There was
(12:26):
it looked the photographs are so sweet like it like
there was like an artistic ketchup installation on the ceiling
that was kind of pretending to drip. There was a
sausage couch with sliced sausage ottomans love it. It had
this like costumed mascot that was a smiling sausage with
(12:47):
arms and feet and like slices along its side.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
They they had their giant plush French fries that you
could like battle with like like a mare congladiator style.
And there were also singing ketchup bottles that sang funny
songs about curry worst, which I had to look into further.
(13:16):
And they were sort of like they were sort of
like like like old school like telephone receivers shaped to
look like ketchup bottles. Oh wow, okay, and more on
the music that they were playing later in the history section.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
That sounds kind of menacing and I love it. Okay, Well,
the dish does have some very high profile fans, including
Angela Merkel, and I want to include this quote from
food critic and writer Stefan Elfinbein who once said, a
big part of the Curry Worst experience isn't even the taste.
(13:57):
It's about standing at the tall tables in front and
chatting with people. You end up talking with people from
all levels of society, and then he went on to
say Berlin is a city made up of strange things
that don't fit together elsewhere, including the Curry Worst, which
I love. I love that kind of point of it,
as you were saying, it's like kind of a street
(14:18):
food a lot of times, and sharing that experience with
people you might not normally interact with, run too or
interact with. Yeah, so I thought that was a pretty
good quote, and it is true. Berlin and the history
of Berlin is very integral into a lot of the
story of Curry Worst.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah we are going
to get into that history. But first we are going
to get into a quick break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
yes we have done a lot of episodes on meats
and sausages. I think you know what I did find
Taylor Ham. I bought some tailor ham though.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Oh oh yeah cool.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So I'm gonna I'm very excited. I'm gonna cook it up.
But what we've done, we've done meats and sausages, things
like that.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Served meats of various kinds.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Sure, uh huh, Yes, we have done ketchup as mentioned,
so go check those episodes out. But this episode, as mentioned,
is pretty clearly tied to Berlin, or at least in
like popular media reporting on it. It is sure.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Sure again, you know, like putting, if you have curry,
if you have ketchup, if you have sausage, there's no
reason to me that you wouldn't put it together, right,
and then like.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Potatoes or so yeah, starch in there.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah yeah, sure, right right, I mean, you know, on
a long enough timeline, like if you get bored enough,
like you're going to combine the foods that you so. Yes,
But that being said, there are some specific origin stories
for us.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yes, And I did want to go back to the
quote that we read right before the ad break, because
as that quote was sort of alluding to the food
scene of Germany in our modern times is largely influenced
by the World Wars and the international presence that stemmed
from them. So, for example, after World War II, the
(16:28):
occupation of Berlin was split up amongst the US, France,
Great Britain on the west side, and Soviet Union on
the east side. Historians think that this contributed to a
unique culinary situation in Berlin and that all of these
influences helped lead to the creation of this dish, which yes,
(16:50):
I think makes sense. Yeah, yeah. And one example I
ran across a lot was ketch up, which has a
very long compl looted history, but it did end up
to be a very popular condiment amongst Americans, so a
lot of historians think that it ended up in Germany
(17:11):
due to homesick American soldiers. While curry powder, which was
a mix of spices the British either came up with
or copied in order to capture the taste of spices
that they had in India while they were occupying. It
was a sign of the British influence. Yes, but the
(17:32):
history of curry worst is largely tied specifically to the
city of Berlin. There is a very popular story about
a woman named Herte Hoiver, a West Berlin housewife who
traded with some British soldiers spirits for ketchup and in
some tellings for curry powder as well. As the story goes,
(17:55):
she went on to add the ketchup to sliced sausage,
sprinkled it with curry powder, perhaps alongside with things like
sugar dashes of Worcester sauce Worcestershire sauce. We just had
this discussion, Scooby doo infiltrates my mind, but the details
are quite sparse. It's kind of like she got the idea.
(18:17):
We're not sure what she added to us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A few publications have some details about her life, nothing
that I could really confirm. It's often reported she was
born in nineteen thirteen in a German city that was
later largely destroyed by war, and in the nineteen forties
Harta settled on the west side of Berlin, where she
(18:38):
opened up a food stand, and according to this version
of events, it was in nineteen forty nine that some
British soldiers rolled up to her stand in need of
a trade of some kind spirits or in some tellings
Worcester sauce for ketchup and or curry powder, and these
(19:00):
are often spun as an example of her bargaining power
and ability to negotiate and haggle, Like she was a
really good business woman, I guess.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, yeah, and and like the innovation of taking these
things that were on hand and making something like more
than some of their parts, right. Yeah. The story from
the Curry Worst Museum went that she hawked her invention
from trays until she could buy a van to convert
into a sausage stand, and that within a few months
(19:28):
there was enough demand that she opened a second one.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
I love the line. The story from the Curry Worst
Museum is Chef's kiss. So there are also several stories
that tell of how she ran several experiments to arrive
at the Curry worst we know today, like boiling it,
frying it, dousing it in sauce, adjusting the ingredients until
(19:56):
she arrived at something she apparently named Chillip, which was
a name patent in the nineteen fifties. And the legend
goes she never shared the recipe. She took it to
her grave.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, not even her husband, like nobody like, uh uh,
that's mine. And there are a couple competing origin stories,
including one from the region where, to be fair, Americans
in their ketchup might have appeared earlier, and also a
Humburg where. Okay, the author of this fiction novel that's
(20:29):
about Curry Worst claims that he ate the dish in
nineteen forty seven, two years before hert does supposed date
of invention, and he said that he based this novel
around his real life story. But mystery's history.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Oh wow, I want to check that out. A story
about the more, a.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Little bit more about it in a minute.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Okay, I can't wait. According to NPR, this dish was
a quote overnight success in part because it was fairly cheap,
somewhat exotic heavy quotes because that has come under fire
a lot. That that term has been used in regards
to this dish thanks to the curry powder, and that
(21:16):
it had a lot of protein, making it a particularly
popular amongst construction workers or just kind of laborers. It
was an example of post war creativity and frugalness of
filling street food. For a while, it was mostly viewed
as a lunch option for the working or poor class,
but soon the well off came to love it as well.
(21:39):
And as you mentioned earlier, Lauren, there were and are
examples of curry Worst at nice hotels that are pretty pissy.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean people have like stunt decorated
curry Worst with gold leaf, the whole thing, you know all.
But meanwhile, back back in our timeline, Currywurst did spread
to East Berlin, like even before the wall fell. One
of the most famous stands there knopkiss, I didn't look
(22:09):
that one up. I'm sorry. Feel free to direct angry
emails my way. They've been serving Curry Worst since nineteen
sixty so.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, I couldn't verifies these numbers as much as I
would have liked. But allegedly hair to Stand in Charlottesburg
was selling ten thousand curry Worst per week until it
shut down in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, I read that too, could not really confirm, but yeah.
She would pass away in nineteen ninety nine, and in
two thousand and three she was honored with a plaque
in Berlin at the site of her first stand, which
is now kind of unromantically located at the back of
an Asian grocery store amidst some shrubs. But you know
it's there. And on June thirtieth of twenty thirteen, on
(22:55):
what would have been her hundredth birthday, the Google doodle
was a curry Worst with fries with the ketchup spelling
out Google. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Wow, that's yeah. Who comes up with these? Right?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Okay? Meanwhile, we need to talk about Volkswagen.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
So in nineteen seventy three, as kind of a measure
of cost saving, Volkswagen started to produce a bunch of
the food that they served in their cafeterias for like
employees and guests. They started to create those products in house,
(23:37):
and so in nineteen seventy three they started producing their
own curry spiced Bockwurst for putting in curry Worst at
those in house cafeterias for employees and guests. It eventually,
possibly like decades later I couldn't track down a date,
became available for purchase to the public, and like it
(24:00):
has an official Volkswagen parts number like anything else that
they manufacture, which I adore. In twenty ten they released
a vegetarian option. By twenty nineteen they were selling some
seven million curry Brockwurst per year, which, as some spicy
(24:20):
media pundits noted was more than the number of cars
they sold. They were like, technically, this is their top product.
Then then they caused kwie astir in twenty twenty one
when Okay, in their administrative building cafeteria they moved to
(24:41):
an entirely vegetarian menu as kind of part of this
big initiative they were doing to be more more environmentally friendly.
So they moved their curry worst in that cafeteria to
using that vegetarian sausage option, and the media freaked out.
(25:03):
One of Markle's colleagues like really railed against it on
LinkedIn of all places. Anyway, I'm like, calm down, y'all, Like,
like the meat version is still available everywhere else. It's
going to be fine, Like you're not. It's going to
be okay. If you eat some tofu, it's not gonna anyway.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I Oh wow, I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, what's going
on on LinkedIn drama barro right.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Anyway, So that's the Volkswagen this portion of our curry sausage.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Episode.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, okay, okay, But stepping back a bit, in nineteen
eighty two, this German like pop rocker by the name
of Herbert Kronemeyer that I tried my best.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Uh yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
He released a song entitled Curry Worst and it's about
like a night out on the town and like, you know,
Curry Worst is what gets you up and it's what
brings you down. It's it's very like it's very like,
oh man, you're going out, what's gonna get you through?
(26:29):
Curry Worst? Like, oh man, you're feeling sick? Now, whose
fault is it? Curry Worst? I'm like, all right, it's
it's catchy.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Uh yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
And I believe that that is what those ketchup phones
were playing at the Curry Worst Museum.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Love It, Love It.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
In nineteen ninety three, that fiction novel that I mentioned
earlier was published. The author is you A Tim and
it's called The Invention of Curry Worst, or in English
it's called that. There's a German title that I'm not trying.
I've given up, you guys. The book is about a
journalist like seeking out the inventor of Curry Worst, and
(27:19):
she's in Hamburg and it's a whole thing and yeah,
so's it's really like a kind of like a peek
into life in post war Hamburg. So yeah. In two
thousand and two, apparently George W. Bush caused a bit
of a stir when he was not appropriately enthusiastic about
(27:40):
his Curry Worst that he was served in Germany. The
article that I read was like he barely touched it.
Can you believe that?
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Oh? I mean yes. But also like it's so fascinating
to me the articles that come out about like he
didn't eat the stick of fried butter. He can have
a resident.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I mean, it's it is, it is. I mean, especially
in Germany, I think that there's a lot of to do,
Like it's a tradition for local politicians to like be
photographed at Curry Worst stands kind of like talking to
their constituents and like doing this whole thing, and so
like it was a little bit of a like don't
you know how to behave dude?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Like right anyway.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Two thousand and four, there was a documentary short about
Currywurst and life in Berlin called The Best of the
Worst that was released by director Grace Lee, and in
twenty thirteen, not to be outdone, McDonald's in Germany sold
for a brief period of time My Curry Worst. It
(29:03):
was limited edition, and I but I think it came
back at least once in twenty nineteen, and like maybe
there was a chicken sausage involved. I couldn't, don't, I
don't know. German.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
I ran across this too, and I can tell you
I ran across a lot of heated thoughts about it.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Oh all right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, I mean again, listeners write in. I'm sure some
people liked it, but a lot of people are like,
how damn ever try to put curry worst into you
McDonald's establishment.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I mean, which is fair?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
No, I see that. Yeah, it's a beloved local product.
How dare Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I mean, I'm with you. I would love to know
if anybody had it, though. I want to know about
like the quality.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Sure accuracy?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
What was going on here?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah, like what was the flavor of the sausage, What
was the flavor of the sauce? Did it have that
good crispy crispy crisp to it? Let me know?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, yeah, I would love to know. I won't and
just any of your opinions thoughts.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah again, I just because my last name is vogel Bomb,
you can tell from the way that we pronounce it
that I don't know German that.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
M hmmm.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I do have one friend who calls me fogel Baum,
which is more correct.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
But yeah, yes, yes, well that's why you know we
count on you, you liss. Yes. And also if you've
been to the museum, if you went when it was oh.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, if you have pictures, oh my goodness, if you like,
if you if you're in an area where you can
like go access a Curry Worst immediately and just be
like suckers.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
This is delicious.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I would love to hear all about it.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Me too, Yes, me too. But I think that's what
we have to say about the Curry Worst for now.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I think it is.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
We do.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
We do already have some listener mail for you, probably
not about Curry Worst. But but first we've got one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back with.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
It's very operatic in a very warm sausage way.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I feel like that, the like orchestra, the symphony of
the ingredients together. Oh yeah, it makes me want to
like spin around in a meadow and enjoy some Curry Worst.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah yeah right, okay.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, yeah. Hopefully soon, Lauren, hopefully.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Okay, working on it.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Adding to the list, the ever growing list. We we've
added some movies to the list. So it's it's gonna
be fun. It's gonna be fun. Yes, And you wrote
in an email title subject lined loose milk, which immediately
(32:25):
I click on. Yeh, Yeah, lou s milk sounds like
a character that a young Steve Bushimi would also I'm sorry,
go ahead. Yes. Also, because about two thirds of the
time I have to try things your shows are about.
I nabbed some Herisa from my local New Seasons. I
(32:49):
got the d de a brand that comes in the
yellow metal tube. Damn that stuff is good. It will
fill the void in my soul. Patched previously by Sir
Rochat garlic chili paste, the Harisa is so much more
complex and delicious. There was a time in my life
when I really prided myself on seasoning my food with
(33:11):
mostly plain ingredients that I fixed myself. But I'm getting
lazier and more willing to treat myself before I eat
myself as I get older. Well that's a phrase I
didn't think I was gonna say on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, there we are here, we are No, what a
wonderful phrase. I'm glad that I've been introduced to it.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Yes, yes, I've definitely expices are like one of the
areas I will really splurge on. Yeah, and they can't.
They go a long way, like if you get like Herisa,
you don't need much. As we talked about. Sure, oh
yeah episode Yeah, so I'm right there, I'm right there
(33:53):
with you. I also agree that loose Milk should be
a character. It's an excellent name. So do you write
something about it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah, no, I need this mister smilk fiction. Yeah, yes, agreed.
And hey, call Steve the Chammy. You see what he's
up to, Like, I'm shut me down. I don't know.
Christine wrote to get around the marigold Colendula to GT's,
(34:27):
am I saying those right, Oh we're okay, We're just
gonna go with it. To get around that confusion, gardeners
in Australia have started referring to Colendula's Old World marigolds
as Colendula's only, and to New World marigolds to GT's
as marigolds only. It saves the confusion of remembering which
(34:48):
are common marigolds or French marigolds, a common name for
GT's go figure. I frequently grow colendula's due to their
importance at medieval gardens, and I've made appointment from sixteenth
century recipes. It's great for healing scratches and rashes and
smells really nice. I also dry the flowers to sprinkle
(35:10):
over salads and baked sweet things. They really are lovely,
especially if you can get a mix of different yellows
and oranges. I've attached a photo of what's left of
these spring flowers. Sadly, I don't have any photos of
colendulas decorating anything, but I do have the sixteenth century
biscuit bread, which is decorated with dried who something and
(35:31):
cornflower petals. I'm not even trying anymore. These were two
other flowers that were popular in medieval gardens and medicines,
though unlike colendulas, they don't really have any medicinal properties. Dianthus.
Dianthus sure might have been the other one. My brain,
My brain just went, now I'm done.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Because it happens sometimes that happens. Christine always writes in
the Amazing like uh recipes of doing like historical Yeah,
yes we did, Lauren, and I I feel like we
keep saying it. We got to travel recently and we
(36:14):
not really anticipating or expecting it, but we ran into
a lot of marigold recipes cocktails and yeah kind of
use some dishes and stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah. Yeah, while while we were out in Vegas, which
is the trip that we recently took, and we're going
to have an episode or two or more coming out
from from that material soon. But uh, but yeah, one
of the one of the restaurants that we went to
is like marigold themed because it's a Mexican cuisine place,
(36:46):
and so one of their like star cocktails has this
dried marigold in it and a little bit of like
marigold tincture of some kind, and.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
It was so.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Warm, like like like like like spicy, like like sunny warm.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Am I making any sense?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
You are? No? No, no, yeah, it was. It was
like kind of a very refreshing light flavor, but it
was still there, like it was light but clear.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, with this hint of musk on the back, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yeah, and it was really great. I believe we posted
a picture, if not of the cocktail of the restaurant
on our Instagram, but I do have. We are going
to be posting some more pictures from that chip and
I do have some pictures of the cocktail. But it
was cool. It was cool. After we had done this episode,
I was like, oh, goy, cool, here we go. Yeah yeah,
(37:47):
And I bet all the things you mentioned Christie making
with it sound amazing and I feel like they do
kind of add like a really fun. Color is a part.
Coloration is a part of dishes, and I do think
marigolds are Oh they're gorgeous like a pop Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
And also after we did or while we were doing
the reading for that episode, I realized that I have
seen the word colendula like ad infinitum, as an ingredient
in various perfumes. One of the nerderies that I got
into at some point was like buying nerd perfume on
(38:26):
the internet and yeah, and coleenula is an ingredient in
some of them. And I was like, oh, oh, yeah, okay, cool, Yeah, yeah,
that's kind of fun because it kind of sounds like
tarantula or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Good, it be vibe for me at least. Yes. Well,
thanks as always to these listeners for writing in. If
you would like to write to us, you can. Our
email is Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
We are on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
or Instagram at saber pod, and we do to hear
from you. Savor is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
Reese and I'm moren Vocal.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Bam, and today we have an episode for you about
curry Worst.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, O, craving cravings, craving scraps O. See.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Okay, this is a dish I don't think I've ever
actually had. But I was getting such cravings during the
reading and especially the looking at photographs in the middle
of the reading, that for sure I had curry for lunch.
I mean different, different thing. But I was like, look,
I don't have sausages, I don't have ketchup or fries,
(00:43):
but I but I can do the curry.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
One of these things I can't accomplish. Yes, yes, I
I love curry Worst. I've I've had it several times.
I did spend a little while in Germany, and I
remember one of the people I was traveling with. I
will say it was kind of picky. Okay, it was
(01:11):
kind of picky, and we've been traveling across Europe. And
when she tasted curry Worst as like an American who
had been I guess missing French fries, sausage. She said,
the taste, the taste, she just was like moved she
(01:31):
was transported. Yeah, all right, yeah, yeah, it's just like
a very satisfying It makes you feel like, oh, this
is so nice. Yeah, that's what I can say. Oh
that's great.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Well, yeah, I hope, I hope I got to try
some some soon. We don't have a lot of German
restaurants around Atlanta. For all of the amazing food that
we have, it's relatively difficult.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah. Yeah. Strangely enough, I know a couple of German
restaurants that are kind of like further north. Too many
in that case, I either yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
This being more of a street food situation anyway, we're
getting ahead of ourselves. Yes, in Germany, September fourth is
National Curry Worst Day, supposedly the anniversary of the dish's invention,
though that is slightly contentious, and I'm pretty sure that
specific date was just made up by this museum that
(02:33):
we're going to talk about. I could be wrong. They
might have had good facts. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Mmmmmmm, well, I'm very excited to talk about the museum. Yes,
oh my heck, yes, and many contentious facts we had.
But I guess this brings us to our question. Yes, yes,
Curry Worst what is it?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, curry worst a type of street food and or
fast food that can come in like a few different iterations,
but you're basically looking at a dish of sausage that's
simmered to cook it through and then either grilled top
or pan fried, served hot and often sliced crosswise, topped
with a thick spiced tomato sauce and a heavy sprinkle
(03:21):
of curry blend powder. So like you've got like a
like a chew and a crisp and maybe a snap
from the savory sausage, and then hopefully a little bit
of shar from the grill or the pan, and then
like the tangy, warming savory flavors from that smooth sauce
and the seasoning. Maybe it's served with or on a roll.
(03:43):
Maybe there's fries on the side. Maybe you're drinking a beer.
I don't know what you're up to. It is most
commonly ordered from like stands and shops while you're out
and about, you know, like a sort of like power
snack to be eaten pretty much on the spot before
continuing on your adventures. It's a it's a really really
good little snossage snack, you know, it's like having not
(04:07):
had it. Uh, this is what came to my mind.
All right, So, like I never got a good idea
of what exactly Scooby snacks are, but I think ideally
it should be this.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Oh does that make sense? Yeah, like a really like
you need some energy. Yeah, yeah, burst of like a
savory kind of spicy yeah thing.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, you need it. You need it to like pump
you up a little bit. You need you need that
like bravery to face the rest of your day or
night or you know, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, yeah that Yeah, I think that's a good Okay,
that's a good comparison. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
It's not just because I mentioned Scooby Doo, No way, never.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
All right.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, debates about the right way to do curry worst
can also be heated along with the spiciness of the sausage.
Lots of people have their favorite style or like favorite stand,
and all other stands are dead to them. I don't
know it's a thing, but okay. Perhaps the most common
(05:21):
and or traditional iterations involve broughtworst or bockwurst, which are
types of sausage made from pork and or veal that
are ground variously fine and mixed with various spices. There
are a lot of styles, from fresh to smoked, encased
to skinless, and there are regional and personal preferences at
(05:43):
work here, like, for example, if you're in Berlin, where
the dishes hypothetically from, you're more likely to find sausages
with casing served in shops from the west, and sausages
without served in shops from the east. Just a thing,
historical thing. Especially recently, there are more options available, including
(06:04):
like halal beef sausages and vegetarian variations stuff like that.
The sauce can vary pretty widely too, from like I
bought some curry flavored ketchup to I bought ketchup and
put curry powder on it to I made this entirely
from scratch, including cooking down tomatoes, toasting my own curry
(06:24):
blend spices, and puring and sauteed onions. There's a range
in there, so yeah, recipes that I've seen generally involve, okay,
your tomato element either tomatoes or paste or ketchup, an
alium element of onion or garlic, either fresh or powdered.
The seasonings like salt, wista, shear sauce, sugar, or honey
(06:47):
and vinegar, spices like black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, paprika, cayenne,
a mustard powder or mustard sauce. It's a matter of
personal preference whether it's more tangy or sweet or salty
or spice. See, but it will involve some combination of
those elements, and lots of places do have like a
spice scale to let you choose how hot you want
(07:08):
the sauce to be. Yeah, yeah, you might add your
curry blend to the sauce or it might just be
a sprinkle on top of the dish. It's typically a
Madras style powder, so like earthy and warm and like
a lovely orange yellow color, involving things like coriander, cuman, fenegreek,
(07:29):
curry leaves, black pepper, cassia, cinnamon, green cardamom, turmeric, chili peppers,
and then maybe stuff like bay leaves, fennel seeds, star annis.
It's curries are their whole own We've talked about a
little bit before. That's yeah, you can do what you
want on those, so again results may vary, and then
(07:51):
most stands will have a few condiments that you can
add to taste, like like like more cayenne pepper, some
chopped chilis or onions, some hot So it is most
often a street food that'll come in like a little
paper tray with like a little wooden spear, but also
appears in like elevated situations too in fancy restaurants. Either way,
(08:12):
you usually get fries or a bread roll with it,
often a specific type called a boutchin. I'm not sure
if I'm saying that right. I did just look it up.
I don't know German, but yeah, it's got like a
crisp crust and like a chewy, soft interior. Or maybe
you might get another Germany side, like like potato salad
or a pickle, maybe a dab of mao or mustard
(08:35):
along with all that too, a beer or sparkling wine
are common accompaniments. And it is a genuinely a cultural phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yes, oh yes, And also I gotta have sparkling wine
with curry worst Now that's just yeah, that's on the
horizon for me. Yeah, that's that's right, right, Like fried chicken.
I imagine that would be just so transcendent. Well what
(09:09):
about the nutrition?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Ah, it is a calorically dense food. Uh, you know,
a good punch of fats and proteins. Eat a vegetable
that doesn't ketchup. Yeah, drink some drink some water.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Oh see our ketchup episodes we did talk about. Well,
we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Oh gosh, we do.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Okay, all right. So, according to the BBC, more than
eight hundred and fifty million curry worst were consumed in
Germany in twenty sixteen, which they said was an annual trend.
Seventy million of those were in Berlin specifically, although I
saw other things that were saying it was like way
more concentrated in Berlin. A two thousand and eight said
(10:01):
he found that eighty percent of German respondents declared that
currywurst was an important part of their diet.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Wow. There, I read that there are some like two
thousand stands that serve it in Berlin alone, and in
surveys from cafeterias around the country, it was named the
most popular dish served alongside crinkle cut fries for twenty
(10:29):
six years in a row as of twenty seventeen. Wow right, yeah.
The Guinness record for the largest serving of currywurst was
achieved in twenty ten. It weighed one hundred and seventy
five kilos that's like three hundred and eighty six pounds.
It consisted of a three hundred and twenty meter long sausage,
(10:52):
which is like a little bit over one thousand feet.
Oh wow, that was It was cooked in a custom
grill as you burn apps can imagine. Plus there were
involved ninety five kilos that's two hundred pounds of tomato
sauce and a full kilo that's two pounds of curry powder.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
That is bananas. Okay, that's almost like a mile long.
I could be running a race like this day. Wow. Okay, yeah,
well this brings us to the museum we mentioned, oh yeah, yeah,
(11:37):
uh huh yes, because from twenty nine to twenty eighteen
there was a Deutsch's Curry Worst Museum. Uh listeners, you
got to write in yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
One of their like like slogans that I think was
up on a wall or a banner perhaps upon entry,
said Curry Worst is more than just a sausage fun
of life's experiences in Germany.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Experience experiences.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah. It apparently took the creators four years and five
million euros to bring the project to life. Over the
course of its existence, it hosted over a million visitors
and then yeah, their lease on the spot ended and
they reportedly just like put everything in storage with the
idea of making it a traveling exhibit. But I'm not sure.
I'm not sure what's going on with that. There was
(12:26):
it looked the photographs are so sweet like it like
there was like an artistic ketchup installation on the ceiling
that was kind of pretending to drip. There was a
sausage couch with sliced sausage ottomans love it. It had
this like costumed mascot that was a smiling sausage with
(12:47):
arms and feet and like slices along its side.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
They they had their giant plush French fries that you
could like battle with like like a mare congladiator style.
And there were also singing ketchup bottles that sang funny
songs about curry worst, which I had to look into further.
(13:16):
And they were sort of like they were sort of
like like like old school like telephone receivers shaped to
look like ketchup bottles. Oh wow, okay, and more on
the music that they were playing later in the history section.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
That sounds kind of menacing and I love it. Okay, Well,
the dish does have some very high profile fans, including
Angela Merkel, and I want to include this quote from
food critic and writer Stefan Elfinbein who once said, a
big part of the Curry Worst experience isn't even the taste.
(13:57):
It's about standing at the tall tables in front and
chatting with people. You end up talking with people from
all levels of society, and then he went on to
say Berlin is a city made up of strange things
that don't fit together elsewhere, including the Curry Worst, which
I love. I love that kind of point of it,
as you were saying, it's like kind of a street
(14:18):
food a lot of times, and sharing that experience with
people you might not normally interact with, run too or
interact with. Yeah, so I thought that was a pretty
good quote, and it is true. Berlin and the history
of Berlin is very integral into a lot of the
story of Curry Worst.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah we are going
to get into that history. But first we are going
to get into a quick break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
yes we have done a lot of episodes on meats
and sausages. I think you know what I did find
Taylor Ham. I bought some tailor ham though.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Oh oh yeah cool.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
So I'm gonna I'm very excited. I'm gonna cook it up.
But what we've done, we've done meats and sausages, things
like that.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Served meats of various kinds.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Sure, uh huh, Yes, we have done ketchup as mentioned,
so go check those episodes out. But this episode, as mentioned,
is pretty clearly tied to Berlin, or at least in
like popular media reporting on it. It is sure.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Sure again, you know, like putting, if you have curry,
if you have ketchup, if you have sausage, there's no
reason to me that you wouldn't put it together, right,
and then like.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Potatoes or so yeah, starch in there.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah yeah, sure, right right, I mean, you know, on
a long enough timeline, like if you get bored enough,
like you're going to combine the foods that you so. Yes,
But that being said, there are some specific origin stories
for us.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yes, And I did want to go back to the
quote that we read right before the ad break, because
as that quote was sort of alluding to the food
scene of Germany in our modern times is largely influenced
by the World Wars and the international presence that stemmed
from them. So, for example, after World War II, the
(16:28):
occupation of Berlin was split up amongst the US, France,
Great Britain on the west side, and Soviet Union on
the east side. Historians think that this contributed to a
unique culinary situation in Berlin and that all of these
influences helped lead to the creation of this dish, which yes,
(16:50):
I think makes sense. Yeah, yeah. And one example I
ran across a lot was ketch up, which has a
very long compl looted history, but it did end up
to be a very popular condiment amongst Americans, so a
lot of historians think that it ended up in Germany
(17:11):
due to homesick American soldiers. While curry powder, which was
a mix of spices the British either came up with
or copied in order to capture the taste of spices
that they had in India while they were occupying. It
was a sign of the British influence. Yes, but the
(17:32):
history of curry worst is largely tied specifically to the
city of Berlin. There is a very popular story about
a woman named Herte Hoiver, a West Berlin housewife who
traded with some British soldiers spirits for ketchup and in
some tellings for curry powder as well. As the story goes,
(17:55):
she went on to add the ketchup to sliced sausage,
sprinkled it with curry powder, perhaps alongside with things like
sugar dashes of Worcester sauce Worcestershire sauce. We just had
this discussion, Scooby doo infiltrates my mind, but the details
are quite sparse. It's kind of like she got the idea.
(18:17):
We're not sure what she added to us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A few publications have some details about her life, nothing
that I could really confirm. It's often reported she was
born in nineteen thirteen in a German city that was
later largely destroyed by war, and in the nineteen forties
Harta settled on the west side of Berlin, where she
(18:38):
opened up a food stand, and according to this version
of events, it was in nineteen forty nine that some
British soldiers rolled up to her stand in need of
a trade of some kind spirits or in some tellings
Worcester sauce for ketchup and or curry powder, and these
(19:00):
are often spun as an example of her bargaining power
and ability to negotiate and haggle, Like she was a
really good business woman, I guess.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, yeah, and and like the innovation of taking these
things that were on hand and making something like more
than some of their parts, right. Yeah. The story from
the Curry Worst Museum went that she hawked her invention
from trays until she could buy a van to convert
into a sausage stand, and that within a few months
(19:28):
there was enough demand that she opened a second one.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
I love the line. The story from the Curry Worst
Museum is Chef's kiss. So there are also several stories
that tell of how she ran several experiments to arrive
at the Curry worst we know today, like boiling it,
frying it, dousing it in sauce, adjusting the ingredients until
(19:56):
she arrived at something she apparently named Chillip, which was
a name patent in the nineteen fifties. And the legend
goes she never shared the recipe. She took it to
her grave.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, not even her husband, like nobody like, uh uh,
that's mine. And there are a couple competing origin stories,
including one from the region where, to be fair, Americans
in their ketchup might have appeared earlier, and also a
Humburg where. Okay, the author of this fiction novel that's
(20:29):
about Curry Worst claims that he ate the dish in
nineteen forty seven, two years before hert does supposed date
of invention, and he said that he based this novel
around his real life story. But mystery's history.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Oh wow, I want to check that out. A story
about the more, a.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Little bit more about it in a minute.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Okay, I can't wait. According to NPR, this dish was
a quote overnight success in part because it was fairly cheap,
somewhat exotic heavy quotes because that has come under fire
a lot. That that term has been used in regards
to this dish thanks to the curry powder, and that
(21:16):
it had a lot of protein, making it a particularly
popular amongst construction workers or just kind of laborers. It
was an example of post war creativity and frugalness of
filling street food. For a while, it was mostly viewed
as a lunch option for the working or poor class,
but soon the well off came to love it as well.
(21:39):
And as you mentioned earlier, Lauren, there were and are
examples of curry Worst at nice hotels that are pretty pissy.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean people have like stunt decorated
curry Worst with gold leaf, the whole thing, you know all.
But meanwhile, back back in our timeline, Currywurst did spread
to East Berlin, like even before the wall fell. One
of the most famous stands there knopkiss, I didn't look
(22:09):
that one up. I'm sorry. Feel free to direct angry
emails my way. They've been serving Curry Worst since nineteen
sixty so.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, I couldn't verifies these numbers as much as I
would have liked. But allegedly hair to Stand in Charlottesburg
was selling ten thousand curry Worst per week until it
shut down in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, I read that too, could not really confirm, but yeah.
She would pass away in nineteen ninety nine, and in
two thousand and three she was honored with a plaque
in Berlin at the site of her first stand, which
is now kind of unromantically located at the back of
an Asian grocery store amidst some shrubs. But you know
it's there. And on June thirtieth of twenty thirteen, on
(22:55):
what would have been her hundredth birthday, the Google doodle
was a curry Worst with fries with the ketchup spelling
out Google. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Wow, that's yeah. Who comes up with these? Right?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Okay? Meanwhile, we need to talk about Volkswagen.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
So in nineteen seventy three, as kind of a measure
of cost saving, Volkswagen started to produce a bunch of
the food that they served in their cafeterias for like
employees and guests. They started to create those products in house,
(23:37):
and so in nineteen seventy three they started producing their
own curry spiced Bockwurst for putting in curry Worst at
those in house cafeterias for employees and guests. It eventually,
possibly like decades later I couldn't track down a date,
became available for purchase to the public, and like it
(24:00):
has an official Volkswagen parts number like anything else that
they manufacture, which I adore. In twenty ten they released
a vegetarian option. By twenty nineteen they were selling some
seven million curry Brockwurst per year, which, as some spicy
(24:20):
media pundits noted was more than the number of cars
they sold. They were like, technically, this is their top product.
Then then they caused kwie astir in twenty twenty one
when Okay, in their administrative building cafeteria they moved to
(24:41):
an entirely vegetarian menu as kind of part of this
big initiative they were doing to be more more environmentally friendly.
So they moved their curry worst in that cafeteria to
using that vegetarian sausage option, and the media freaked out.
(25:03):
One of Markle's colleagues like really railed against it on
LinkedIn of all places. Anyway, I'm like, calm down, y'all, Like,
like the meat version is still available everywhere else. It's
going to be fine, Like you're not. It's going to
be okay. If you eat some tofu, it's not gonna anyway.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I Oh wow, I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, what's going
on on LinkedIn drama barro right.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Anyway, So that's the Volkswagen this portion of our curry sausage.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Episode.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, okay, okay, But stepping back a bit, in nineteen
eighty two, this German like pop rocker by the name
of Herbert Kronemeyer that I tried my best.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Uh yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
He released a song entitled Curry Worst and it's about
like a night out on the town and like, you know,
Curry Worst is what gets you up and it's what
brings you down. It's it's very like it's very like,
oh man, you're going out, what's gonna get you through?
(26:29):
Curry Worst? Like, oh man, you're feeling sick? Now, whose
fault is it? Curry Worst? I'm like, all right, it's
it's catchy.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Uh yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
And I believe that that is what those ketchup phones
were playing at the Curry Worst Museum.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Love It, Love It.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
In nineteen ninety three, that fiction novel that I mentioned
earlier was published. The author is you A Tim and
it's called The Invention of Curry Worst, or in English
it's called that. There's a German title that I'm not trying.
I've given up, you guys. The book is about a
journalist like seeking out the inventor of Curry Worst, and
(27:19):
she's in Hamburg and it's a whole thing and yeah,
so's it's really like a kind of like a peek
into life in post war Hamburg. So yeah. In two
thousand and two, apparently George W. Bush caused a bit
of a stir when he was not appropriately enthusiastic about
(27:40):
his Curry Worst that he was served in Germany. The
article that I read was like he barely touched it.
Can you believe that?
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Oh? I mean yes. But also like it's so fascinating
to me the articles that come out about like he
didn't eat the stick of fried butter. He can have
a resident.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I mean, it's it is, it is. I mean, especially
in Germany, I think that there's a lot of to do,
Like it's a tradition for local politicians to like be
photographed at Curry Worst stands kind of like talking to
their constituents and like doing this whole thing, and so
like it was a little bit of a like don't
you know how to behave dude?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Like right anyway.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Two thousand and four, there was a documentary short about
Currywurst and life in Berlin called The Best of the
Worst that was released by director Grace Lee, and in
twenty thirteen, not to be outdone, McDonald's in Germany sold
for a brief period of time My Curry Worst. It
(29:03):
was limited edition, and I but I think it came
back at least once in twenty nineteen, and like maybe
there was a chicken sausage involved. I couldn't, don't, I
don't know. German.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
I ran across this too, and I can tell you
I ran across a lot of heated thoughts about it.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Oh all right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, I mean again, listeners write in. I'm sure some
people liked it, but a lot of people are like,
how damn ever try to put curry worst into you
McDonald's establishment.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I mean, which is fair?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
No, I see that. Yeah, it's a beloved local product.
How dare Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I mean, I'm with you. I would love to know
if anybody had it, though. I want to know about
like the quality.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Sure accuracy?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
What was going on here?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah, like what was the flavor of the sausage, What
was the flavor of the sauce? Did it have that
good crispy crispy crisp to it? Let me know?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, yeah, I would love to know. I won't and
just any of your opinions thoughts.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah again, I just because my last name is vogel Bomb,
you can tell from the way that we pronounce it
that I don't know German that.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
M hmmm.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I do have one friend who calls me fogel Baum,
which is more correct.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
But yeah, yes, yes, well that's why you know we
count on you, you liss. Yes. And also if you've
been to the museum, if you went when it was oh.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, if you have pictures, oh my goodness, if you like,
if you if you're in an area where you can
like go access a Curry Worst immediately and just be
like suckers.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
This is delicious.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I would love to hear all about it.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Me too, Yes, me too. But I think that's what
we have to say about the Curry Worst for now.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I think it is.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
We do.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
We do already have some listener mail for you, probably
not about Curry Worst. But but first we've got one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back with.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
It's very operatic in a very warm sausage way.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I feel like that, the like orchestra, the symphony of
the ingredients together. Oh yeah, it makes me want to
like spin around in a meadow and enjoy some Curry Worst.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah yeah right, okay.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, yeah. Hopefully soon, Lauren, hopefully.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Okay, working on it.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Adding to the list, the ever growing list. We we've
added some movies to the list. So it's it's gonna
be fun. It's gonna be fun. Yes, And you wrote
in an email title subject lined loose milk, which immediately
(32:25):
I click on. Yeh, Yeah, lou s milk sounds like
a character that a young Steve Bushimi would also I'm sorry,
go ahead. Yes. Also, because about two thirds of the
time I have to try things your shows are about.
I nabbed some Herisa from my local New Seasons. I
(32:49):
got the d de a brand that comes in the
yellow metal tube. Damn that stuff is good. It will
fill the void in my soul. Patched previously by Sir
Rochat garlic chili paste, the Harisa is so much more
complex and delicious. There was a time in my life
when I really prided myself on seasoning my food with
(33:11):
mostly plain ingredients that I fixed myself. But I'm getting
lazier and more willing to treat myself before I eat
myself as I get older. Well that's a phrase I
didn't think I was gonna say on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, there we are here, we are No, what a
wonderful phrase. I'm glad that I've been introduced to it.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Yes, yes, I've definitely expices are like one of the
areas I will really splurge on. Yeah, and they can't.
They go a long way, like if you get like Herisa,
you don't need much. As we talked about. Sure, oh
yeah episode Yeah, so I'm right there, I'm right there
(33:53):
with you. I also agree that loose Milk should be
a character. It's an excellent name. So do you write
something about it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah, no, I need this mister smilk fiction. Yeah, yes, agreed.
And hey, call Steve the Chammy. You see what he's
up to, Like, I'm shut me down. I don't know.
Christine wrote to get around the marigold Colendula to GT's,
(34:27):
am I saying those right, Oh we're okay, We're just
gonna go with it. To get around that confusion, gardeners
in Australia have started referring to Colendula's Old World marigolds
as Colendula's only, and to New World marigolds to GT's
as marigolds only. It saves the confusion of remembering which
(34:48):
are common marigolds or French marigolds, a common name for
GT's go figure. I frequently grow colendula's due to their
importance at medieval gardens, and I've made appointment from sixteenth
century recipes. It's great for healing scratches and rashes and
smells really nice. I also dry the flowers to sprinkle
(35:10):
over salads and baked sweet things. They really are lovely,
especially if you can get a mix of different yellows
and oranges. I've attached a photo of what's left of
these spring flowers. Sadly, I don't have any photos of
colendulas decorating anything, but I do have the sixteenth century
biscuit bread, which is decorated with dried who something and
(35:31):
cornflower petals. I'm not even trying anymore. These were two
other flowers that were popular in medieval gardens and medicines,
though unlike colendulas, they don't really have any medicinal properties. Dianthus.
Dianthus sure might have been the other one. My brain,
My brain just went, now I'm done.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Because it happens sometimes that happens. Christine always writes in
the Amazing like uh recipes of doing like historical Yeah,
yes we did, Lauren, and I I feel like we
keep saying it. We got to travel recently and we
(36:14):
not really anticipating or expecting it, but we ran into
a lot of marigold recipes cocktails and yeah kind of
use some dishes and stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah. Yeah, while while we were out in Vegas, which
is the trip that we recently took, and we're going
to have an episode or two or more coming out
from from that material soon. But uh, but yeah, one
of the one of the restaurants that we went to
is like marigold themed because it's a Mexican cuisine place,
(36:46):
and so one of their like star cocktails has this
dried marigold in it and a little bit of like
marigold tincture of some kind, and.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
It was so.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Warm, like like like like like spicy, like like sunny warm.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Am I making any sense?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
You are? No? No, no, yeah, it was. It was
like kind of a very refreshing light flavor, but it
was still there, like it was light but clear.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, with this hint of musk on the back, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yeah, and it was really great. I believe we posted
a picture, if not of the cocktail of the restaurant
on our Instagram, but I do have. We are going
to be posting some more pictures from that chip and
I do have some pictures of the cocktail. But it
was cool. It was cool. After we had done this episode,
I was like, oh, goy, cool, here we go. Yeah yeah,
(37:47):
And I bet all the things you mentioned Christie making
with it sound amazing and I feel like they do
kind of add like a really fun. Color is a part.
Coloration is a part of dishes, and I do think
marigolds are Oh they're gorgeous like a pop Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
And also after we did or while we were doing
the reading for that episode, I realized that I have
seen the word colendula like ad infinitum, as an ingredient
in various perfumes. One of the nerderies that I got
into at some point was like buying nerd perfume on
(38:26):
the internet and yeah, and coleenula is an ingredient in
some of them. And I was like, oh, oh, yeah, okay, cool, Yeah, yeah,
that's kind of fun because it kind of sounds like
tarantula or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Good, it be vibe for me at least. Yes. Well,
thanks as always to these listeners for writing in. If
you would like to write to us, you can. Our
email is Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
We are on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
or Instagram at saber pod, and we do to hear
from you. Savor is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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