Cult sausage in the limelight

Germans love their sausages. Things have now gone so far that there is a museum in Berlin devoted to the “currywurst”, the sausage served in curry sauce. Sanna Svanberg has visited an interactive paradise.

It was after a trip to Jamaica that curator Martin Löwer had the idea of opening a currywurst museum in Berlin. In Jamaica he had visited a museum devoted to the island’s national dish – yams – and had begun to think about which dish had similar status in his native Germany. Four years later, in August 2009, the Currywurst Museum opened its doors, a stone’s-throw from Checkpoint Charlie.

The “street kitchen” as a meeting place

I am shown round the museum by exhibition-producer Nora Mayr. We start by sitting down in a sausage-shaped sofa to watch a brief film clip from one of Germany’s numerous sausage manufacturers. Huge drops of tomato sauce, made from some unknown material, hang from the ceiling. Nora tells me that the employees at the factory eat currywurst every day for lunch. In the entrance hall to the museum there is a genuine hotdog stand on wheels. Visitors can get inside and find out what life is like for a hotdog seller by pressing various buttons that simulate boiling or frying sausages with the attendant smoke. “Street kitchens are places where everyone is welcome; very democratic meeting places! We wanted to visualize this aspect of everyday life.”

A journey through German popular culture

Via ketchup bottles we listen to Herbert Grönemeyer’s love song to the currywurst. The museum offers a journey through selected parts of German popular culture. “We did an enormous amount of research”, Nora maintains. “We began to realize the importance of the currywurst in German society and even in other countries. By means of blogs and emails from fans we learnt that this is a dish that gives rise to many feelings and memories.”

Currywurst in the world

Nora pointed knowingly at a glass case containing international foodstuffs, notably bottles of “Liquid Currywurst” from the USA. On the wall one can see how common the currywurst is in German TV series. We can watch people enjoying them on ten different screens in front of us. At the same time, the director of the museum Birgit Breloh, is being interviewed by German Arts TV.

An interactive paradise

The museum is also an interactive challenge. There are buttons to press or turn and levers to open. There is a quiz at a suitable level for the youngest children. And a touchscreen teaches me how to cook a genuine currywurst. “The information is presented in layers. How much you learn depends on how deep you want to go”, Nora tells me while revolving a wooden disc that answers questions about paper-recycling in Germany.

Mysterious Herta

One room in the museum is devoted to the currywurst’s mother Herta Heuwer. She started selling this dish in her hotdog stand back in 1949. She never revealed the recipe, not even to her husband, and currywursts are now prepared in innumerable different ways. Nora shows me the installation where one can smell all the different types of spices that are used.

Health risks and militant vegans

The fact that fast foods also pose health risks is widely known but Nora insists that it is important to mention this when guiding teenagers and children round the museum. That the currywurst is politically sensitive was something that the museum experienced at the opening in September when militant vegans demonstrated outside the entrance. “Whereupon it transpired that the demonstrators actually came from a company that sells vegetarian currywurst!” she tells me with a smile.