|Käsewurst|

The concept is simple, really, and not at all unheard of. Supermarkets in the US carry tons of items stuffed with cheese in one form or another: chicken nuggets, hot dogs, etc. So when it was recommended to me to try the Käsewurst (cheese sausage, or cheese bratwurst), the idea wasn’t a foreign one. And who doesn’t want to take a ride into cheese-town every once in a while? It was an easy sell, and I have to say, one that was worth it.

On December 4th the rains continued unabated, adding a cold wetness to the warm atmosphere of the Christmas Market. Guided by the sweet aromas of the many grills, I made my way to a corner hut and ordered the wurst. The first thing that struck me when receiving the dog was its size. Both the sausage and the roll it was served in were huge, but huge in opposite directions. This is the one element of the German sausage culture I’ll never understand; the homemade sausages are crazy long, while the rolls they’re served in are inordinately round, big enough to easily fit two and half of the sausages with their ends sticking out on either side. Considering their obsession with elongated meat casings, I always wondered why the hot dog bun never took off. I routinely find myself ripping off the top half of the roll simply because I don’t want the extra bread. But is this nitpicking? Absolutely. In any case, the käsewurst was huge. Intimidating to look at, for a variety of reasons. But I accepted it with grace and topped it with with a standard helping of Senf, or German mustard, and made my way to the center of the market.

There’s something to be said about not taking shortcuts, especially when it comes to food. Even though I was standing in the middle of another culture remarkably similar yet immeasurably different than my own, I still expected, for whatever reason, that the Käsewurst would be a sausage injected with melted cheese-goop via syringe. It just goes to show you, your culture isn’t what you show off. It’s the assumptions you make without realizing you’ve ever made them. Or maybe I simply have no grasp on how things are done outside my immediate sphere of experience. Regardless, I was happy to realize the error of my prediction when first biting into the Käsewurst. As many would have probably guessed, and correctly so, the cheese (a nice Gouda) was ground right into the sausage itself, and how dare I ever question the methods of these people. It will not happen again.

I ate with ferocity, mini-pockets of melted cheese exploding and bursting within the sausage as I consumed it. It was a very pleasant experience. The Käsewurst is a common sense combination, and for good reason. My only advice for future consumers would be to wait a hot minute before diving in, lest the cheese inside become lava to your tongue. That, and don’t be afraid to just rip off the top half of the roll. You don’t need that much bread.

Käsewurst Scores

Taste  🎄🎄🎄

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Fullness  🎄🎄🎄