Berlin Diaries: Prepare for the Wurst

Sausage so bad it's good

Hello everyone - a quick note before we start. I published this post a couple of years ago when there were a fair fewer of you than there are now. Because of this, I’ve decided to re-post it. Hopefully there will be a lot of you discovering this for the first time. I hope that those of you who have read it before enjoy rediscovering it. I’ll be re-posting the odd diary entry from the first year or so of Tom Fish Is Away about once a month, but don’t worry, there will still be the same amount of new content. Though a quick apology for the recent silence, I’ve had a cold/flu I wouldn’t recommend to my least favourite teacher. But, normal service is resuming, the next new post will be in your inboxes on Thursday.

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I’m on a walking tour, and it’s that time on the walking tour where our guide has decided to earn her tips. Question time. An older Englishman leans in furtively, he’s about to ask her something controversial: “Is there such a thing as good currywurst?”

Apparently not, according to our guide. “It’s supposed to be bad,” she says, “you’re not meant to have currywurst with good sausage.”

Quite. If you’re going to eat currywurst (and you should), you need to prepare for a pork sausage with a relationship to a pig as passing and brief as a snog in a nightclub. High quality meat this is not.

But it’s a Berlin classic, a dish invented in the city. That is unless you ask people in Hamburg, some of whom insist it was invented there instead. Nevertheless, you can’t walk ten yards down a street in Berlin without a sausage all but smacking you around the face, and if you’re going to eat one thing in the German capital that isn’t a falafel wrap, it should be this.

So, where to go. Well, you don’t need to worry about gourmet. As my tour guide says, you don’t need good currywurst. Any will do. If you’re in Mitte, there’s Curry 61. It lurks down on Oranienburger Straße, near Hackescher Markt.

When I visit there’s a line down the street, tourists among them, but there are Germans too, Berliners in shirts and trousers. The after work crowd scoff their sausages, their shirts remain stainless. This is Germany after all and not the East End on a Thursday night.

I get the crispy sausage to help ward off the knowledge that this is a sausage that has been boiled. The star of the show accompanies it: the sauce. There are no awards given out here for guessing that there’s curry powder in it. This is mixed with tomato sauce to give a concoction that transforms the meat. Fries to go with, of course, and then heaps and heaps of ketchup and mayo.

For those of you who, like me, like the sort of food that looks like it should come with a hygiene warning, this is for you. It’s drunk food but served at all hours. Screw your doner kebab, get rid of that soggy pizza, it’s currywurst I want.

I haven’t told you the best bit. It’s so cheap. It should be, I suppose, they save money by not needing a butcher. All of that sausage, sauce, fries, come to less than 10 euro. Eat currywurst and your waistline may expand, your doctor may scream, your belt may need more holes. But your wallet will remain full, as will your heart, right up until the moment it explodes.

I’m in Berlin for a week. I go to Curry 61 three times. I don’t set out to, I have good intentions. Berlin is a big city with a lot of food that needs eating. I must broaden my horizons. But anytime I’m nearby, I drift on back to Oranienburger Straße. Yes, crispy, please. Ketchup, mayo, pile the fries high.

So back to the Englishman’s original question, is there such a thing as good currywurst? That depends on your point of view. What about too much currywurst? I find that there is.

After a week in Berlin, I stand in the airport terminal. I long for fruit and vegetables. A banana, a courgette. I never long for courgettes. Anything green, anything that looks like it could be grown in the ground.

But the choices are slim. Terrible looking sandwiches in plastic packets. Sad ciabattas that inexplicably cost 18 quid. There is currywurst, though. I sigh, submit. I go with my heart, not my waistline. Crispy sausage, sauce, heaps and heaps of ketchup and mayo. Pile the fries high.

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Writing this made me think about all of the food I love to eat but know I shouldn’t. Please tell me about your favourite drunk food in the comments, and, preferably, where I can find it.

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