Munich Weißwurst or white sausage      

Veal and pork sausage flavoured with onions and fresh parsley. Length: around 12 cm, diameter: 28 to 32 mm, weight: 80 to 100 g, colour: white, texture: fine, lose, slightly sticky.

The tradition of eating Weißwurst in the morning has continued until the present day. Even when it is nowadays nearly always only produced as a “Brühwurst” (already boiled sausage) and subject to a strictly controlled cooling process, this tradition has continued in Bavaria. Eating Weißwurst after noon is taboo. One simmers the sausage in water and eats it warm. It is consumed with Bavarian sweet mustard, pretzels and a Bavarian beer. The Weißwurst is eaten without its skin and there are several techniques for skinning this sausage which are also traditional.

Bavaria with main area in the state capital Munich

The Weißwurst is a Munich speciality with a long tradition. Through customary festivals, particularly the Oktoberfest or during Fasching in Munich the Weißwurst has become world famous in parallel with its home city. According to the annals of Munich the Weißwurst was born on February 22, 1857 in the inn “Ewige Licht” on Marienplatz. It was reported that the inn butcher at that time, Joseph Moser - known as Sepp, started very early in the morning of that day to make veal sausages, a well known favourite of the time. He then discovered that the necessary sheep gut sausage skins or covers had run out. In this emergency – the guests were already ordering their sausages – he filled the light coloured sausage meat into large-calibre pig intestine, twisted the sausages off and warmed them in hot water because he feared that otherwise the skins would burst if fried or grilled as usual. After initial misgivings on the part of the guests, the new sausage creation became a full success and in the passage of the following decades established itself as a permanent feature of cuisine in Munich.

Veal, fat ham, boiled calf head meat, ice shavings, cooking salt, fresh parsley, onion, pepper, mace, and lemon powder. The lean meat proportion is mainly, i.e. at least 51%, veal. To the stripped meat is added the “Häutelwerk” which comprises cooked pieces of detached calf head with skin, connective tissue from calf meat and cooked rind from the meat of young pigs. The proportion of Häutelwerk must not be over 10% of the mix. Added water must not exceed 25% and fat content must be below 30%.

Lean meat is chopped in the cutter and salted. After which some of the shaved ice is added.Then the cutter is cleaned before being filled with the ham, which is then chopped into a foamy mass, and the lean meat added. Mixed thoroughly into the mix then are salt, pepper and other spices, chopped rind and minced calf head meat, finely chopped onion and fresh parsley. The sausage filler is then used to fill the prepared covers and the sausages turned at the desired size. The sausages are then cooked for 25 minutes at 70°C. Thus prepared, Weißwurst can keep for several days within the cool cabinet. In some cases the sausage is still sold raw where they are to be heated and eaten within a short time.

From Munich the Weißwurst has gone on to conquer the whole of Bavaria. A few Munich butchers retail the sausage uncooked, according to old tradition.

The Munich Weißwurst is so popular nowadays that it is now produced in other regions of Germany. It is sold one by one in butchers but is also now available from industrial producers vacuum packed or canned.