Currywurst: The Story of War, Colonization, and Three Continents
A subject that has always interested me is food. Especially the history of food.
Where do the cuisines we eat come from?
How did they get to us?
Why are they so common in our day-to-day lives?
Take something as easy as marinara sauce, a staple of Italian cuisine. In fact, marinara is such a staple that it’s hard to imagine Italian cuisine without this one sauce. But as I talked about in a previous article marinara sauce is actually a relatively new invention dating back to only the 19th Century.
Marinara sauce required Pre-Colombian trade routes, colonization, and the Hapsburg Dynasty. Just this one, seemingly simple sauce has so much history behind it.
So, that’s the purpose of this article. I am going to be taking a single food and tracing its history, seeing where all the ingredients come from and how they came together to create a dish.
So, what food will be the subject for today’s article?
Currywurst
For those of you who don’t know what this is, Currywurst is a popular German street food. The reason I’m picking it is because it’s a relatively simple dish with only core three ingredients: Wurst, Ketchup, and Curry Powder. My hope is that these unique ingredients will offer enough content to show an interesting story that spans the world without making this article drag on needlessly.
So, let’s start by going over the origin story of Currywurst.
Currywurst was invented in Berlin in 1949 by a woman named Herta Heuwer. The concept behind it was to create a cheap but filling meal to sell to the beleaguered city. She combined local German sausage with curry and ketchup which were procured from the local British garrison.
Already you can see some interesting historical questions begin to take shape.
Why were the British in Berlin? World War Two.
Why did the British have curry, a combination of spices from India? The spice trade and colonization.
Why was curry so popular that common British soldiers had a supply to barter with? A lack of flavourful local cuisine.
As you can see, just by examining the origins of a dish, you already have ropes to start traveling along to get a deeper understanding of the history behind the things we consume.
So, let’s divide this article into three sections. One for each of Currywurst’s core ingredients. After all, each has its own history that must be discussed and understood before it could even appear in 1940’s Berlin.
Wurst
Currywurst traditionally uses a kind of pork sausage known as a bratwurst.
So, the first thing we have to ask is when did humans start to eat pork and how did our methods of procuring pork change over time. Second, we need to ask ourselves when the practice of pork-eating reached Germany.
Domesticated pigs are a version of Eurasian Boar which originated in South East Asia over 2 million years ago. From its place of origin, it gradually migrated and spread across Eurasia. This wild boar was often hunted and a source of meat for our distant ancestors.
Now, there are two theories behind how this Eurasian Boar became our domesticated pig. The first states that 9000 years ago, Neolithic farmers domesticated it in the Tigris River Basin and in South-Central Turkey. From here, it was imported into Europe by migrating farmers who settled in the Balkans.
Another theory, supported by DNA sequencing, states that instead of having a single site of domestication, there were several sites of domestication spread throughout Eurasia. One such site was located in Germany.
This means that the pig was either introduced to Germany as farming and horticultural methods diffused there from the Balkans or that a subspecies of the domesticated pig was already native to Germany. Regardless, the pig has been present in Germany long before written records.
So, we have the pigs, now how do these pigs get turned into sausage?
Sausage-making, like pork-eating, is a tradition that dates back to our hunter-gatherer days. It was used as a method of preserving meats (either through smoking or drying) while making the meat more portable (by stuffing it into easy-to-handle intestines).
We have a written record, on a Sumerian clay tablet from 1600 BCE, that discusses that salt was used in the preservation of meat to make it last longer. We also have records of sausage-making dating back 1000 BCE in Egypt. Sausages were even mentioned in the Odyssey, the first European text to discuss them.
While the written records may show a narrative of diffusion, I personally think that’s more indicative of the spread of written language over the spread of sausage-making techniques. In my opinion, sausages arose in many locations independently, with no evidence of diffusion from one geographic region to the next. If there was an animal that could be hunted then that animal could be turned into sausage and that skill very likely arose within communities rather than brought from outside of them.
So, both pork-domestication and sausage-making are potentially indigenous to Germany. But now we have to ask how these techniques turned into Wurst.
It turns out that the history of Bratwurst is a point of contention in Germany with two regions vying for the status of being its founder: Bavaria and Thuringia.
The Bavarian claim is supported by a written record dating back to 1313 CE which was penned by the Nuremberg City Council. In this decree, they defined a recipe for bratwurst. It states that only pork loin could be used in the production and that there was a meat inspector who would check in on pork butchers and ensure that they were meeting a certain standard.
The Thuringian claim, meanwhile, has documentation dating back to 1404 CE. Though the region claims that there is a much longer oral tradition dating back to the 7th Century CE when the Sorb people migrated into the region and brought their sausage-making practices with them.
This point of contention is actually quite heated as there is also a rivalry between these two regions over who has the oldest beer purity laws in Germany. But regardless of local animosity, we have two potential origins for bratwurst. Though, from either of these sites, the techniques diffused throughout Germany and would eventually end up in Brandenburg, and thus, Berlin.
This is by far the easiest of the ingredients to discuss.
Ketchup
Ketchup is an interesting condiment as it not only has its own unique history but it also uses a variety of ingredients that all have their own exotic origins.
So, what is in ketchup?
A mixture of tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, salt, spices, and seasonings that was invented in the United Kingdom. A list of ingredients that required trade between three continents and the discovery of the New World. Something we take for granted, nowadays, but would’ve been no easy feat to procure for our ancestors.
So, let’s dissect each of these ingredients.
Tomatoes
Let’s start with tomatoes, probably the most important and vital ingredient in ketchup.
The good news is that I’ve already written an article which discusses the history of the tomato. It can be found here. But for those of you who want an abridged version, instead of reading another long essay, here it is:
The tomato originated in the Andes, in a region that makes up modern day Peru and Ecuador. From here, it spread throughout the Inca, Aztec, and Mayan Empires on Pre-Colombian trade routes.
Europeans found out about this fruit as early as 1521 when Henan Cortes captured the city of Tenochtitlan. By 1571, it was used extensively by the Spanish settler populations and over the course of the 16th century it would spread to Europe via the port of Seville in Spain. From here, it would be transported across the entire Spanish Habsburg Empire, ending up in the Caribbean, Southern Italy, Belgium, and the Philippines.
During its early years in Europe, the tomato was largely a botanical curiosity and not seen as a viable food source. This was in part because it was compared to aubergines, a toxic plant, by scholars of this period. Said scholars included Italians Pietro Mattiolo and Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1544 and 1572 respectively. And important to our discussion, English Surgeon John Gerard in 1597.
Early English encounters with the tomato were dominated by the works of Gerard which inhibited the ability of the tomato to penetrate English cuisine.
While this phobia for the tomato would persist, at some intensity, until the 19th century, there were earlier attempts to rehabilitate the fruit.
In 1710, William Salmon, another doctor, discussed that the tomato was being consumed within the hot countries of Southern Europe. Around this time, the tomato also started to gain medicinal purposes. It was seen in English medicine as some kind of magical cure all. It was supposedly able to cure the vapours in women, fits in mothers, and even had the ability to cure bladder ailments.
The English Jewish community would be the first to integrate it into their cuisine, due to their close connection with trade to tomato rich regions of the globe.
In 1754, we see the first published recipes that included the tomato in England, with Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery containing several. By 1780, it would seem that the tomato was widely accepted into British cooking and around this time even the Encyclopedia Britannica made references to it being used in soups, broths, and as a garnish.
And finally, during the Victorian period, tomatoes were grown on an industrial scale within the UK in greenhouses in Worthing.
Sugar
Now here we come to the next of our divergent paths in this narrative. What kind of sugar is used in the production of ketchup? Is it cane sugar or beet sugar?
Well, a quick google search says it’s high fructose corn syrup which is pretty much what is used in everything nowadays. But historically, both kinds of sugar (cane and beet) were used in the production of ketchup.
What is the difference between beet sugar and sugarcane? Essentially, where in the world it originates from. Sugarcane originated in Southeast Asia while beet sugar is European in origin. So naturally, you’d think that the British would have easier access to beet sugar, correct?
While that may be true nowadays (when they’re not using corn syrup), historically sugarcane was actually the more common variant.
But to understand why this is the case, we must go back in time and learn how each variant of sugar reached the island.
Sugarcane has the longer history of the two. It was first domesticated in Papua New Guinea at around 8000 BCE. Early sugar consumption was done by chewing upon the raw cane for its sweetness.
Over the next eight millennia it would spread outwards, and by 600 BCE, it was being cultivated and consumed in Southeast Asia, China, and India.
Europeans first learned about sugar through the records of Narchus, an Admiral of Alexander the Great, during his campaigns in India in 325 BCE. By the 1st Century CE, sugar would become a common product in Greco-Roman medicine.
In 350, an important development would happen in terms of sugar, when methods of crystalizing it were developed in India, making the product much more portable, storable, and most importantly, easy to consume.
By 600, sugar had reached the Persian Empire, being cultivated in the Near East. After Islamic expansion into the region, sugar would then be spread throughout their holdings in the Mediterranean, including Spain and Sicily.
Sugar began to appear in Western and Central European texts in the 11th century, when Crusaders brought home sugar as part of their war prize from the Crusades. And these Western Europeans would gain quite a taste for it.
Between 1455–80, Portugal would begin the large-scale cultivation of sugar on Madeira (an island chain in the Atlantic) and the city of Antwerp would become a hub of sugar refinement. Though, the next big development in the history of sugar would happen a few years later, in 1492, with Columbus’ first voyage.
The New World became a hot spot for the development of sugar cultivation and refinement. Between 1492–1540, sugar would be introduced to Brazil by the Portuguese. In 1501, the Spanish would introduce it to the island of Hispaniola (modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic). And by 1550, there would be more than 3000 sugar mills operating within the New World.
The English were late to this venture with sugar colonies being established in Barbados in 1625 and Jamaica in 1655. Though by the end of the 17th Century any time lost was more than made up for as the English had sugar colonies in Barbados, Saint Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Jamaica, Barbuda, the Cayman Islands, and the Bahamas.
Soon they would jump to a leading position within sugar. Between 1710–1770, sugar would grow to account for 20% of European imports and the English and French would control 80% of this trade.
By the end of the 18th century, the UK would utterly dominate the sugarcane trade, when during the Napoleonic Wars, the UK cut off all French access to sugarcane from its colonies.
Now where do sugar beets fall into this narrative?
The sugar beet is a garden vegetable which is common throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Its sugar content made it ideal for animal feed due to its high calorie count.
That is until 1747, when German Chemist, Andreas Marggraf, started to do experiments related to the potential refinement of sugar from these beets. This sugar was initially unpopular as it was expensive to produce and of lower quality than sugarcane. Still, by 1802, an experimental beet sugar factory was established in Silesia (modern day Poland)
What made the sugar beet really takeoff, however, was the Napoleonic Wars. As mentioned, these wars cut off France’s imports of sugarcane from its Caribbean possessions. So, to meet domestic demand for sugar, Napoleon invested heavily into sugar beets.
By 1811, forty factories were established in France to process sugar beets. Even after the war, with the loss of most of its New World possessions, France continued to invest into this technology and production rose steadily throughout the 19th century. By 1880, beet sugar would overtake sugarcane as the most common form of sugar in Europe.
While I was unable to find any discussion on beet sugar in the UK, it would not be a stretch to assume that the cultivation and refinement of beet sugar was taken up on the island. Or at the least, that the finished sugar was imported from the mainland during the subsequent period of free trade that happened soon after the Napoleonic Wars. I say this because early ketchup did utilize both kinds of sugar.
Salt
Well salt is perhaps the easiest ingredient to discuss. It’s universal throughout the globe and has been used since before writing was invented. Within the UK, there are four major salt mines: Northwich, Middlewich, Natwich, and Winsford. All of these have been in operation since at least Roman times; if not earlier.
Vinegar
What is vinegar?
Vinegar is a by-product of ethanol coming into contact with oxygen. Which means that if a society has the capacity for both agriculture and fermentation, it has the ability to produce vinegar.
Our first written records of vinegar date back to 3000 BCE when the Babylonians wrote down recipes for an alcoholic beverage that was made from fruit and the sap of date palms. They noted that when this beverage came into contact with the air it would turn to vinegar and could be used to preserve and pickle foods.
Around this time, the Egyptians also recorded a similar process. And in 1200 BCE, so did the Chinese.
The first European text to discuss vinegar dates back to 400 BCE and the Greeks. Hippocrates wrote about the medical properties of vinegar, mentioning that it could be used to cure coughs, colds, and disinfect wounds.
In 218 BCE, vinegar would be used within military engineering by Hannibal who would use large amounts of vinegar to cut his path through the alps.
Now what about the English? When could they have hypothetically developed vinegar?
Well, we have evidence that wine, millet beet, and mead were all consumed on the island by the Celtic populations in the 4th Century BCE. Though that being said, vinegar could have been developed much earlier than this. All it would take is the existence of a population that could ferment plant matter on the island.
While I could end the discussion on vinegar here, I’d like to briefly discuss the developments that went into making vinegar an industrial process. Though I will mention that a lot of this development was centred upon mainland sources, as these were the texts that were readily available to me.
By the Middle Ages, vinegar went from being a craft, made mostly by individual producers, to a product produced through industrial means. In 1394 CE, the first vinegar guilds attained the rank of guild-mastership in France, meaning they had oaths and secrets that were kept from the general population.
Around this time, the Orleans method of vinegar production was developed. What this involved was taking barrels of wine and turning them sour (into vinegar). Then 85% of this vinegar would be drained while the remaining 15% would be topped off with fresh alcohol to repeat the process in a more rapid fashion. This greatly increased vinegar production within France.
This method of vinegar production would be the most popular one until the introduction of industrial means. Here we see the entrance of Karl Schuzenbach who invented the Pack Generator in 1823. What this new method involved was circulating alcohol through beechwood shavings, which reduced the time needed to ferment vinegar from several months to a few weeks.
While I have no records of the English importing either method, I doubt they were ignorant of these developments.
Spices
So, we have one last set of ingredients left: the spices. And while I could go into this, I think it would be best to save this discussion till we talk about the history of curry powder. With that being said, ketchup includes a wide range of spices, including: allspice, cassia, cinnamon, cayenne, cloves, black pepper, ginger, mustard, paprika, and onion.
So, we have all the ingredients in the UK now and can discuss how these were combined to develop ketchup.
Making Ketchup
Ketchup originates from the Chinese word ke-tsiap, which is a fermented fish sauce that is enjoyed in Vietnam and Southeastern China. The British encountered this sauce while trading in the region and likely wanted to replicate it when they returned home.
The first recorded recipes for ketchup date back 1732. Though this original ketchup was very different from the sauce we know. It was thin, dark, and savoury, made from mushrooms, walnuts, oysters, and anchovies.
And for a while, this is what ketchup was to the general British populace.
That is, until 1812, when the first recipe for tomato ketchup was published by James Mease. It was a bit more familiar to our modern palates and contained tomato pulp, spices, and brandy. Though it lacked vinegar and sugar.
This new sauce was incredibly popular as it was both tasty and long lasting, being able to survive upwards of a year before going bad. Though this longevity came at a cost. Early ketchups had many unhealthy preservatives in them, including coal tar and sodium benzoate.
This would change, however, with the last great leap in ketchup-manufacturing.
In 1876, Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley teamed up with Henry Heinz to produce a new kind of ketchup. A ketchup that didn’t need these toxins in order to be long lasting. This new ketchup used ripe red tomatoes which included a natural preservative called pectin and also used larger amounts of sugar and vinegar. It was an instant hit, and by 1905, 5 million bottles were sold, effectively killing the artisan ketchup industry.
So, we have wurst and we have ketchup. That leaves us with only one last ingredient to discuss.
Curry
Curry is a combination of spices and herbs, the most important of which are turmeric, ginger, and garlic.
People have been eating curry for millennia with archeological evidence showing that it was being consumed in the Indus Valley Civilization between 2500–2200 BCE. This discovery was found by examining the trace remains of turmeric and ginger in cooking vessels and the remains of carbonized garlic bulbs in Indus Valley Civilization archeological sites. This means that curry is amongst one of our oldest cuisines.
Curry would eventually spread throughout India and into East Asia and the Near East via the silk road, fueling demand for spices across Eurasia.
While spicy food had been present in Europe, due to the Silk Road, It had fallen out of favour in Western European courts with the collapse of Roman hegemony. It wouldn’t be until the Crusades that they relearned to enjoy it.
Along with that sugar they brought home, they also brought with them various spices, fueling a desire for them in European courts. A desire to acquire spice, without relying on Muslim trade networks, is what would eventually lead to the Age of Exploration, with almost all major European courts seeking a direct route to India.
It is also during colonization that three core ingredients would be brought into India, further revolutionizing curry. These are potatoes, tomatoes, and chilies which were brought to the subcontinent via the English and Portuguese trade centres in the region.
Around this time, the Mughals would come to dominate the subcontinent, bringing in their own spices and culinary preferences from the Near East and Persia. All of these factors would shape curry into our modern understanding of the cuisine.
The first examples we have of curry in English kitchens date back to 1754 with the Art of Cookery (yes, the very same). In this book there was a recipe for curry which included onion, butter, black pepper, salt, cream, lemon, and most importantly, turmeric, ginger, and garlic.
The English enjoyed curry greatly with some stories stating that English officials in India ate the meal three times a day.
By the 19th century, it became fashionable to eat curry in the UK as Queen Victoria brought on Indian chefs to prepare her curry in Buckingham Palace. And it was also around this time that curry became a middle-class staple.
The 19th century also saw Indian cuisine pop up in London restaurants with Hindostanee Coffee House opening, the country’s first Indian restaurant. Though they were not alone in capitalizing upon this new trend with many pubs serving it on their menus.
Curry would remain strong throughout the first half of the century but the mania would eventually start to peter out in 1857, with the Sepoy Mutiny against British authority in India. While curry did recover slightly, when the conflict ended, it had very obviously started to fall out of fashion within English kitchens.
It wouldn’t be until the 1940s that the island saw a resurgence in Indian cuisine. This happened during the war, when marooned Indian sailors would buy up fish and chip restaurants in London and Cardiff, adding curry to their menus, sparking a resurgence in curry’s popularity.
And that takes us right to that fateful moment in 1949.
Conclusion
Currywurst is a deceptively simple dish, containing three core ingredients: wurst, ketchup, and curry.
Wurst is the simplest of these ingredients, having a history that is entirely domestic to Germany. Though even then, it has a contested history with a deep rivalry between two German regions over the honour of who invented this little sausage.
Ketchup is a condiment we take for granted, used extensively by most of us. Yet, this sauce started as a savoury black fish sauce in China. It then changed when the tomato was made available, a crop that required centuries of colonization and exploitation of a newly discovered continent. And sugar, may that be sugarcane, that spread throughout the world by conquest, or beet sugar, a product that rose out of the ashes of revolutionary war.
Finally, we have curry, a set of spices and ingredients that required thousands of years of trade and diffusion before it reached our British soldiers (and thus Frau Heuwer).
And the thing about this article, is that most of our cuisines and foods have histories that are similarly in-depth and reliant on a connected world that would’ve been foreign to us even two hundred years ago. So, I hope this article made you look at what you’re eating or drinking and appreciate the journey each ingredient made to be enjoyed by you.
Thank you for sticking around until the end and please follow me on Twitter or check out my Carrd if you’re interested in my work.
