, literally 'white sausage'; ) is a traditional
Bavaria
Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...
n
sausage
A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs, may be included as fillers or extenders.
...
made from minced
veal
Veal is the meat of Calf (animal), calves, in contrast to the beef from older cattle. Veal can be produced from a calf of either sex and any List of cattle breeds, breed; however, most veal comes from young male calves of Dairy cattle, dairy b ...
and
pork
Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig animal husbandry, husbandry dating back to 8000–9000 BCE.
Pork is eaten both freshly cooke ...
fatback
Fatback is a layer of subcutaneous fat taken from under the skin of the back of a domestic pig, with or without the skin (referred to as pork rind).
In cuisine
Fatback is a preferred fat for various forms of charcuterie, particularly sau ...
. It is usually flavored with
parsley
Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum''), is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to Greece, Morocco and the former Yugoslavia. It has been introduced and naturalisation (biology), naturalized in Eur ...
,
lemon
The lemon (''Citrus'' × ''limon'') is a species of small evergreen tree in the ''Citrus'' genus of the flowering plant family Rutaceae. A true lemon is a hybrid of the citron and the bitter orange. Its origins are uncertain, but some ...
,
mace,
onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...
s,
ginger
Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...
and
cardamom
Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genus (biology), genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indon ...
, although there are some variations.
Then the mixture is stuffed into pork casings and separated into individual sausages measuring about in length and in thickness.
As they are not smoked or otherwise preserved they are very perishable. were traditionally manufactured early in the morning and prepared and eaten as a snack between breakfast and lunch. There is a saying that the sausages should not be allowed to hear the noon chime of the
church bell
A church bell is a bell in a church building designed to be heard outside the building. It can be a single bell, or part of a set of bells. Their main function is to call worshippers to the church for a service of worship, but are also rung o ...
s.
Even today, most Bavarians never eat after lunchtime (though it is perfectly acceptable to have a lunch consisting of ).
The sausages are heated in water—well short of boiling—for about ten minutes, which will turn them greyish-white because no colour-preserving
nitrite
The nitrite polyatomic ion, ion has the chemical formula . Nitrite (mostly sodium nitrite) is widely used throughout chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The nitrite anion is a pervasive intermediate in the nitrogen cycle in nature. The name ...
is used in preparation.
are brought to the table in a big bowl together with the hot water used for preparation (so they do not cool down too much), then eaten without their skins.
Ways of eating include the traditional way, called (Bavarian for sucking), in which each end of the sausage is cut or bitten open, after which the meat is sucked out from the skin.
Alternatively, the more popular and more discreet ways of consuming it are by cutting the sausage lengthwise and then "rolling out" the meat from the skin with a fork,
or also to open it on one end and consume it very much like a banana, ever opening the peel further and dipping the sausage into the mustard.
is commonly served with a Bavarian sweet
mustard
Mustard may refer to:
Food and plants
* Mustard (condiment), a paste or sauce made from mustard seeds used as a condiment
* Mustard plant, one of several plants, having seeds that are used for the condiment
** Mustard seed, small, round seeds of ...
() and accompanied by (Bavarian
pretzel
A pretzel ( ; from or , ) is a type of baking, baked pastry made from dough that is commonly shaped into a knot. The traditional pretzel shape is a distinctive symmetrical form, with the ends of a long strip of dough intertwined and then twi ...
—often spelled outside Bavaria) and .
, whose consumption traditionally is associated with Bavaria, helped in the coining of a humorous term, (literally, 'white-sausage-equator'), that delineates a cultural boundary separating other linguistic and cultural areas from
Southern Germany
Southern Germany (, ) is a region of Germany that includes the areas in which Upper German dialects are spoken, which includes the stem duchies of Bavaria and Swabia in present-day Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, and the southern portion of Hesse ...
.
See also
*
*
*
List of veal dishes
This is a list of veal dishes, which use or may use veal as a primary ingredient. Veal is the meat of young calves, in contrast to the beef from older cattle. Though veal can be produced from a calf of either sex and any breed, most veal come ...
*
White hot
The white hot is a variation on the hot dog found primarily in the Rochester, New York area, as well as other parts of Western New York and Central New York. It is composed of a combination of uncured and unsmoked pork, beef, and veal; the lack ...
References
External links
Food from Bavariapublished by the ''Bavarian Dept. for agriculture and forests''
The correct treatment of a Weißwurst- essay about preparing and eating Weißwurst properly (
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
file)
{{Authority control
German sausages
Veal dishes
Bavarian cuisine
Culture in Munich
1853 introductions
Cooked sausages