Vegan Currywurst mit Brezel

A longer and more detailed description

I could have gone with a perfectly ordinary German recipe, like spaetzle or sauerkraut or any of the innumerable other dishes. Or I could look at what I was craving, decide to go with a full on Bavaria night, but then recognise that I am me and it was never going to be a truly accurate Bavaria night.

Bavaria night starts well in advance, since we’re making dough that needs to sit and think delicious thoughts for a bit before becoming a brezel. Mix your sugar, water, and yeast together and let the yeast bask in its happy little yeast bath. Once it’s all bubbly and joyous, mix it in with flour, and let them all be happy together, covered and cozy, for at least an hour. While that’s settling, do unspeakable things to baking soda by baking it. This is important, trust me.

Once everything is settled and happy, make your actual brezeln. In the above recipe, I rolled my dough snakes out to about a foot long because that’s how much counter space I had, but you are welcome to roll yours out however far you like. The longer your snake, the bigger the brezel!

Actually shaping the brezeln is simpler than you’d think. Form your dough into a giant U with the fat bit near the bottom. Cross the tops of the U over each other, then cross the tips. Bring the tips down to the base of the U and voila! One pretzel!

Repeat this until you’re a pretzel pro.

After turning all your dough into brezeln, cover them with a towel and prepare your brezel bath. Boil three cups of water, add your baking soda, and mix until it’s dissolved. Dip each brezel into the bath for three seconds, then fish it back out. Add salt or whatever topping you like, then bake for 10-15 minutes, or until you don’t want to wait anymore.

While your brezeln are baking, make your currywurst! Cook some number of vegan sausages while combining all remaining ingredients in a bowl (I used a leftover container!). Splatter the sauce over the sausages and call it haute cuisine. Enjoy your glorious meal with some beer. Guten apetit!

Substitutions and suggestions

For the brezel toppings - While I was in Munich, I ran into multiple bakeries that had absolutely divine pepper pretzels. Make that. Don’t bother with salt. Just pepper. Trust me.
For the brezel cuts - Outside Bavaria, it’s traditional to slice the fat end of the brezel open before baking it. Bavarians, on the other hand, let the brezel crack wherever it wants. I’m not a brezel oppressor, so I just let it crack willy-nilly.
For the baking soda - Traditionally, these would be made with lye rather than baking powder. I don’t want to die, so I used baking soda.
For the sausages - I know one of the premises of this series is that I don’t want to use processed meat substitutes, but look. I don’t know how to make a vegan sausage. I’m guessing most people don’t. Is that worth the effort? Is it?

What I changed to make it vegan

I subbed out the sausages for vegan sausages. I’m such a creative chef.

More seriously, currywurst is generally made with Worcestshire sauce, which usually has fish. I substituted in barbecue sauce because I like barbecue sauce, and because it still has some of the nuance of taste.

What to listen to while you make this

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okay but it was inevitable

A bit of context for this dish

German cuisine is likely one of the cuisines you’d heard of when I started on this series. It’s the stereotypical cuisine, loaded with meat, cabbages, beer, and bread, serenaded by tubas and accordions, and shepherded into being by a woman in a frilly, bosom-revealing shirt.

And there are elements of this cuisine in modern German cuisine, though it is worth noting that those images are specifically Bavarian. German cuisine as a whole is much more varied and nuance, with a variety of sources and influence while also itself being massively influential on surrounding cuisines. However, I’d argue that it’s the currywurst that has come to symbolise much of the unofficial modern German cuisine, especially in Berlin.

The author in Berlin, shortly before getting some excellent vegan currywurst at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Source: Me)

Unlike most dishes covered in this series, currywurst has a clear origin time period and location. Like most dishes that I claim that’s the case for, this origin is contentious.

The most popular story of currywurst’s origins - and the one patented in 1951 - is that currywurst was invented by a humble German housewife living in Berlin. In the wake of WWII, supplies were short. Families made due with what they had and sought unconventional means to feed themselves. In 1949, German housewife Herta Heuwer traded with British soldiers for ketchup and curry powder, smothering her sausages in them. This proved to be popular not only with her family, but with everyone who tried them. Heuwer opened a stall in Charlottenburg, then a restaurant. By 1959, it was being sold in restaurants throughout Berlin as a working man’s staple, something easy to eat, flavourful, and full of protein. Heuwer’s currywurst was a success, and is today eaten by the millions, in addition to being Volkswagen’s most produced product.

This is, of course, not the only origin story of the currywurst.

The original 1959 patent for the currywurst using its original name, chillup (Source: Berlinexperiences.com)

In the book “The Development of the Currywurst,” author Uwe Timm tells an alternate version of currywurst’s origins. His story has some similarities - post-war scarcity meant people made due with what they had - but there’s a key difference. His version takes place in Hamburg, and it takes place in 1947. This claim however, has no evidence behind it beyond a die-hard cult following in Hamburg, and an entire play telling this alternate origin story of the currywurst.

Another alternate story takes place in Lower Saxony in 1946. In this version, chef Ludwig Dinslage found himself scrambling to prepare a meal for British officers spending the night in Bückeburg Castle. In a tizzy and unsure what to do with his limited ingredients, threw curry and ketchup on some sausages. This was a hit with the British, and the dish went on to become popular.

While either story may tell the story of a sausage slathered in ketchup, neither tells the story of currywurst. It is Heuwer’s name on the patent and, in 2020, the German patent office confirmed that Berlin currywurst can only be produced in Berlin.

Currywurst from Curry36, one of the best currywurst restaurants in Berlin (Source: Curry36. Also me. I'm making that claim about the restaurant)

Regardless of whether the currywurst originated in Berlin or Hamburg, though, there is a reality about its origins. It is a food borne out of desperation and shortages, spreading through a country and becoming a symbol not only of its people’s resilience, but of the country itself.

It is also absolutely delicious.