August 11, 2021, 3:25 p.m.
August 11, 2021, 3:25 p.m.
Update: August 11, 2021, 3:44 p.m.
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It is cult and should never be missing, the original VW currywurst. The author of these lines has eaten them a few times, the last time around four years ago. Test drives with new models from Volkswagen around Wolfsburg. Back at the main plant, the press officer asks if it would be okay to go to the canteen together. Logical – eat a currywurst again, the recipe of which is almost as secret as the blueprints for new models. Nice and spicy, but not too spicy, add a bun. That had to be easy when visiting Wolfsburg. For the employees of Europe’s largest car manufacturer, the currywurst was as much a part of VW as the Golf. Off, over, over. VW has removed them from the menu. Not quite, but at least in the canteen of the branded high-rise, probably the most distinctive building on the huge factory premises.
Is it really the end of currywurst at VW?
The company restaurant in the VW brand high-rise should be meat-free after the company holiday. That has now even called former Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schrder, who once sat on the supervisory board of the car manufacturer as Prime Minister of Lower Saxony. “If I were still on the VW supervisory board, there would have been no such thing,” Schrder wrote in a post on the LinkedIn job network. “Vegetarian nutrition is good, I do it myself in phases. But basically no currywurst? he made clear and asked if the employees really wanted that. “Currywurst with French fries is one of the power bars of the skilled worker in production. It should stay that way.” The 77-year-old even went one better and posted the hashtag #rettetdieCurrywurst. It is now going viral on social networks.
It is probably not quite as dramatic as Schrder portrays it. But yes: Millions of curry sausages have been eaten in VW canteens year after year. The special thing about it: the sausages are made in the in-house butcher’s shop. Most recently in the pre-Corona year 2019 there were around seven million curry sausages from the Volkswagen meat shop, plus more than 550 tons of special ketchup.
The daughter of Audi prefers onion roast beef
At the VW subsidiary Audi in Neckarsulm, currywurst does not play a major role on the menu. Here one relies on regionality. That is why there are always Maultaschen or the onion roast, which is well known beyond the factory boundaries and is extremely popular with Audi employees.
At the location, the mix is also important: in addition to meat dishes, there are vegetarian dishes, bowls and salads. The classic schnitzel with french fries is also special. The currywurst, on the other hand, is more of a cult dish in the neighborhood.
And again and again it’s just about the Soe
As such, it is already on the menu in the company canteen at the IT service provider Bechtle on Friday. “Currywurst with homemade cola sauce”. If you frown now, you should know that the Bechtle canteen was recently named the eighth best canteen in Germany in a competition by the specialist magazine “Food & Health”. She relies on regionality – and yes, the currywurst can definitely be described as a regional specialty in the Heilbronn area.
A must in Heilbronn’s side streets
“I don’t really know any other city where the fairgrounds and thus the subject of sausage and currywurst play such an important role as in Heilbronn,” says restaurateur and chairman of the Heilbronn city initiative, Thomas Aurich. He himself came to Heilbronn after his studies, in winter, and saw people eating currywurst at wine barrels in a side street in the cold. “Then I knew this is my city, stay here.”
How exactly the currywurst came to Heilbronn, opinions differ. However, it always stays in the family. Because the sausage business in Heilbronn has been a family business since Karl and Eleonore “Eli” Kropp came to Heilbronn in the early 1950s.
They sold sausages and sausages and were so successful that Eli soon announced to her siblings: “Come to Heilbronn, you can earn money here!” So came Irma and Alfred Schrter, Walter and Ingrid Silzer, Hilde and Hans Sllner and Alma and Jrgen Rathgeber. And all of them sold sausages.
From Berlin directly to the Neckar
This is what Uschi Schrter, the daughter of Irma and Alfred, who is still in the business with her sister Hanne, tells it. Who of the five couples brought the currywurst to Heilbronn, there are probably different stories about it in the extended family. Walter Silzer’s wife Ingrid came from Berlin and is said to have brought the idea with her.
But Alfred Schrter had also come to Heilbronn from Berlin. “I don’t know for sure, I wasn’t there,” says Uschi Schrter. The only important thing is: the recipe is a closely guarded secret in every family. The question of origin has not yet led to serious disagreements. “The cohesion is great,” says Schrter. Help yourself out at any time if you have a need, if you are missing bread or something.
Lots of sauce in which the kebab skewers cook
The typical thing about the Heilbronn sausage is, by the way, that the red instead of the white is used here – “70 percent”, as Uschi Schrter estimates. The rest demand the white sausage, which is preferred in many other regions.
And then, of course, a lot depends on the Soe. It is prepared, then the kebab skewers come in. “Only then will it be really good,” says Uschi Schrter, at least one little secret. And in Heilbronn there is more soe than ketchup on the sausage – that is not a matter of course either.
Maybe the Heilbronn currywurst will also find its way to Wolfsburg
Another special feature so far: There are no vegan or vegetarian currywursts in Heilbronn, at least not among the representatives of the five main families. The Heilbronn currywurst sauce has recently been sent all over the world for this purpose. Jasmin Nagel, daughter of Hans Sllner, and her husband Andreas, put them into bottles and founded a startup.
This week, Hildegard Mller, President of the automotive industry association VDA, received a package with Sllner-Soe during her visit to Neckarsulm. The CDU member of the Bundestag Alexander Throm thanked them for coming. Perhaps she will tell you about it on her next visit to Wolfsburg. It could be that the canteen will surround it again.
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