A Wurst Case Scenario in Rothenberg

By Lee Hammerschmidt - The sausage sat there, fat and quivering on my plate like a purple, jello-filled condom (Magnum size!). Its three identical siblings were striking the same pose on the plates of my traveling companions. The potatoes and red cabbage that had accompanied them from the kitchen had long disappeared. Nobody had worked up the nerve to cut into one of these pulsating, undulating, zeppelin-like entrees.

But with the side dishes in the rear-view mirror, and midway through the second round of yeast-infected, jumbo, economy-sized hefeweizens, it was time to separate the adults from the kiddies.

"Well," I said, "as 'The King' would say, it's now or never."

I took another pull from my high-carb beer and picked up my utensils. I pinned the wiggling beast down with my fork. Half expecting it to cry out in pain, I brought down my knife and made the incision.

* * *

The Kriminal Museum in Rothenberg, by Lee Hammerschmidt

It was near the end of our first week in Germany. We were in the medieval walled city of Rottenburg, on the famous Romantisich Strasse (Romantic Road). My wife/bodyguard Nan and I, along with my sister, Sue, and her husband, Erwin, had just finished an exhilarating day of walking the turrets of the town, and (be still my beating heart) visiting the famous Kriminal Museum - the Crime Museum!

Thumbscrews, iron maidens, and chastity belts, oh my! Racks! Cages! Instruments of torture and interrogation! And my personal favorite - the Baker's Chair! It was in this cramped metal chair that bakers who were convicted of dealing undersized loaves (easy there, folks) were restrained and put out for public display and ridicule. Man, why aren't we using that today and calling them “Corporate CEO Chairs?”

So, after our very full day, we were famished and thirsty. Sue and Erwin, being fluent German speakers and former residents of the Deutsche Republic, had arranged our accommodations at a guest house (Gasthaus for those of you hip to the lingua franca), and were therefore our liaison with the locals.

"Willi recommended this place for dinner," Sue said, after conferring with our lodger. She held up a slip of paper with just a number written on it. "It's on the first right after you get inside the wall of the town."

"What's the name of this joint?" I asked.

"No name. We're just supposed to knock on the door and tell them Willi sent us."

"Tell them Willi sent us?" I asked, puzzled. "What is this, a speakeasy? And who's Willi - Al Capone?"

"It'll be great," Erwin said. "The best food town is always at unmarked, out-of-the-way places."

Did I mention that Erwin was a German citizen? Well then, he should know.

"Okay,” I said. "As long as there's beer! Let's go!"

If we hadn't been given an address, we would have had no idea that the place was a restaurant - or was it? It was just a number above a doorway.

We knocked. A burly, bearded fellow cracked the door and gave us the stinkeye. My sister rattled off something in German. He opened the door, waved us in, and led us to table and bench seating. He flipped down menus listing only three or four items. No frills.

However, he did immediately take our drink orders for the aforementioned beverages, which was a promising sign.

Having no idea what was on the menu, I left the decision-making to Sue, who in her defense had done a pretty good job up to this point on recommending cuisine. Funny how things have a way of evening out.

Inside the wall that surrounds Rothenberg, by Lee Hammerschmidt

"I'd say Number Three," Sue said. "I've never had the sausage in this part of the country, but everyone says the blutwurst is really good. I know you won't like the other stuff."

"Yeah, I think I'll go with that," Erwin chimed in, in either a show of marital support or blind ignorance.

Our gruff host returned and we placed four orders for Number Three.

"Und noch eine runde,” I exclaimed, proud of my ability to order another round of drinks in a foreign tongue. After another round of these big boys my next phrase would be "Wo is de toilette?" Which, when you think about it, are the only two phrases you really need to get by in a foreign country.

It's a good thing the second round arrived before the food (and I use the term charitably) arrived, or no one would have stuck around. We all stared in disbelief at the plates the waiter had dumped before us.

"How do you say 'What the &$#@ is this?’ in German?" I asked my sister, who was growing paler by the second. Not an encouraging sign when someone who has spent considerable time living in a foreign country blanches at the sight of national dishes.
Nobody said much. Everybody worked on the potatoes and cabbage, which were ubiquitous to every meal. And drank.

But now we were at that point in time where action was called for. I grabbed my knife and slashed away. The vic immediately started oozing a thick, gravelly, grayish, pus-like substance. The shocked table gasped in unison as the casing spewed its contents onto my plate. It was like a car wreck - you were horrified, yet you could...not...look...AWAY!

I could have let it go at that. Seeing the looks of horror and nausea on my tablemates’ faces should have been enough. But no, I had to pick at the scab. Maybe it was the trip to the Crime Museum, seeing man's cruelty to his fellow man. Maybe I'm just clinically disturbed. Who knows. Nonetheless, I grabbed my fork, scooped up a big load of the viscera, and shoved it in my pie hole, trying to just swallow it down without having to taste it. No such luck.

Well, let's just say it did NOT taste like chicken. In fact it actually tasted worse than it looked. Gritty, grimy, lumpy, pasty, and foul! I grabbed my beer and killed it. I was going to need several more to get this taste out of my mouth.

"How do you say 'Check, please' in German?" I gasped at my tour guides (or albatrosses?).

We settled up as quickly as possible. Our host seemed miffed at the fact that we had left three untouched and one severely deflated blutwurst on our plates, while all around us the local townspeople where chowing them down with gusto.

We beat cheeks to the closest tavern we could find and ordered more jumbo yeast-beers. I had some serious system cleansing to do. After several more rounds, we had settled down to the point where we could laugh about it and get some sleep that night.

As we stumbled along the cobblestone streets to our guest house, the conversation centered on the most gruesome torture device we had seen that day, and if we had our druthers, which one should be brought back into the penal (that's PENAL, people) system. Thumbscrews? The Rack? The people's favorite, the Baker's Chair?

"Nah," I said, "Let 'em eat blutwurst!"