Weisswurst (German Weißwurst (help·info), literally white sausage; Austro-Bavarian: Weißwuascht) is a traditional Bavarian sausage made from very finely minced veal and fresh pork bacon. It is usually flavoured with parsley, also known as beiderl, lemon, mace, onions, ginger and cardamom, though there are some variations. The mixture is then stuffed into fresh, clean pork casings and separated into individual sausages about ten to twelve centimeters in length and about two centimeters in thickness.

As it is very perishable, Weisswurst is 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 church bells' noon chime.^[1] Traditionally, Weisswurst may only be served until midday due to the fact that the meat is not smoked and hence the sausage is made fresh every day. So before modern refrigeration technologies, in summertime the sausages would go bad before nightfall. Even today, most Bavarians eat their Weisswurst before noon.

The sausages are heated in water, broth, or white wine just short of boiling, for about ten minutes, which will turn them greyish-white because no color-preserving nitrite is used in Weisswurst preparation.

Weisswurst is brought to the table in a big bowl together with the cooking liquid used for preparation (so it does not cool down too much), then eaten without the skin.^[2] Ways of eating Weisswurst include the traditional way, called zuzeln, in which each end of the sausage is cut open, then the meat is sucked out from the skin.^[3][1] Alternatively, the more popular and more discreet ways of consuming it are by cutting the sausage in half in the long direction so that the lower part of the skin remains intact, and then "rolling out" the meat from the skin with a fork, or just ripping the sausage apart and consuming the filling.^[3]

Weisswurst is commonly served with a special Bavarian sweet mustard (Weisswurstsenf) and accompanied by Brezen and Weissbier.^[3]

Weisswurst is rarely eaten in parts of Germany besides Bavaria although it is available at well-assorted grocery stores and butcheries throughout most of the country—a fact that helped coin the term Weißwurstäquator.

[edit] See also

• Bockwurst

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• How To cook and eat a bavarian white sausage at YouTube (requires Adobe Flash)
• Food from Bavaria published by the Bavarian ministry of state for agriculture and forests
• The correct treatment of a Weißwurst - essay about preparing and eating Weißwurst properly (pdf file)