Berlin Currywurst

Currywurst belongs to Berlin first, to the Imbiss counter, the football table, the late train home, and the weeknight when supper has to be quick but still cooked. This is not feast-day food. It is post-war city food, built from sausage, tomato, spice, and thrift, and it has earned its place because it does the simple thing properly.

Berlin argues with the Ruhrgebiet over the right sausage and the right sauce. Berlin often wants a fine Bratwurst or a skinless sausage, fried and cut into coins, sauce over the top, curry powder last. In the Ruhrgebiet the portion is usually bigger, the sauce sweeter, the fries close by, and the local pride is not small. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders; here the split runs through the cities, not the Alps.

The technique is the sauce. Cook the tomato paste and spices in fat before the liquid goes in, because raw tomato paste tastes tinny and raw curry powder tastes dusty; a minute in hot fat wakes the paprika, softens the curry, and gives the sauce a deeper colour. Then simmer it until it coats the spoon. Nicht aus dem Glas. Ketchup with powder stirred in is not cooking, it's surrender with a sausage beside it.

Fry the sausage until the casing snaps under the knife, cut it thick, spoon the sauce while it is glossy, and dust the curry powder at the end so the smell reaches you before the fork does. Schön ist, was schmeckt.