Address to a Currywurst

Robert Burns famously composed an “Address to a Haggis”, and deservedly so, since haggis is delicious. And I’m not actually going to compose an address to a currywurst, the official dish of Berlin, but I did want to mention it in all of its unsophisticated mystery since I felt no natural way to work it into my post on Berlin proper.

Currywurst is really very simple. You take a bratwurst (in America we’d use a hot dog), put some ketchup on it (so far pretty normal), and then sprinkle a healthy dose of curry powder on top. That’s it. You don’t make curry and pour that over the wurst, like the Brits do with their chips. Nor do you cook the meat as a part of a curry. That’s much too complicated.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s tasty. I love my curries (Thai, Indian, Japanese, you name it), and I frequently use curry powder as a seasoning when sautéeing meat. I just find it very amusing that this dish, born from British soldiers stationed in Berlin post-WWII wanting to literally spice up their brats, has become *the* official dish of the city. They have a museum for it! There’s a “curry” shop practically every other block, and they all sell almost only currywurst. Like, I might as well just buy my own shaker of curry powder and carry it with me around town, to use at my discretion.

Does the U.S. have a “national dish”? According to the old expression, apple pie is pretty American… Maybe hamburgers? Those aren’t especially high maintenance, either. Nor do they pretend to be. I guess I’m thrown by how singular the focus is on curry powder as a topping. You can find brats being sold “plain”, more like a hot dog in the States, bun and all, and there will be options to put ketchup or mustard on them. And there are special relished brats prepared differently. But at what point did “bratwurst with curry powder” become “currywurst”? The cheeseburger isn’t separately enshrined from the hamburger; why and how did the currywurst become its own privileged entity?

I suppose Berlin gonna Berlin, and I know when I get back to NY I’m going to take a small container of curry powder with me to the first Sabrett stand I see.