Toeing the line in Bavaria/Wurst und Würste

My favourite Bavarian TV programme, quer (on Thursdays) reported last week on the sad case of the master butcher Franz Xaver Kremhöller from Niederalteich, who finished up paying a 200 euro fine because his meat salad (a Bavarian delicacy) contained too many different types of sausage.
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The crux of the matter is that there are clearly regulations defining Fleischsalat and Wurstsalat, two delicacies I believe I have never tried despite being here since 1982. Fleischsalat contains Brühwurst (Langenscheidt: ‘sausage for heating in simmering water’). But does a certain percentage of Brühwurst really mean only one sort? I agree with the email sent to the TV station by Franz Pieringer, that Brühwurst is a collective:

bq. mir scheint, dass das Verständnis für die deutsche Sprache bei allen Beteiligten des Fleischwurstskandals (!) nur rudimentär vorhanden ist. Wenn Sie sich eine Wurstsemmel kaufen, werden Sie doch nicht böse sein, wenn mehr als nur eine Sorte Wurst drin ist, und auf einem Käseteller, den Ihnen der Kellner zum Abschluss eines Essens bringt, darf doch auch mehr als nur eine Sorte drauf sein.
Bei “Brühwurst” im Singular handelt es sich doch um einen Sammelbegriff! Warum also nicht mehrere Sorten von Brühwurst? Spätestens dem an Gesetzes- und Verordnungstexten geschulten Richter hätte da ein Licht aufgehen müssen, oder bin nur ich so blöd?

Picture of Bavarian Fleischsalat. (Disclaimer: no guarantee that this is the right recipe or legally eaten in Bavaria, and I dissociate myself once again from all links)
Article in Passauer Neue Presse
Article in Oberbayerisches Volksblatt

3 thoughts on “Toeing the line in Bavaria/Wurst und Würste

  1. While in almost all other contexts I would be delighted to learn that squads of meat salad inspectors roam the hills and valleys of Bavaria, I am having a hard time with the concept of “too many kinds of sossage”.

  2. Yes, it’s disturbing. His salad is obviously particularly good of its kind. But they are allowing him to sell it, provided he puts on the label ‘with six kinds of sausage’.
    What I can’t understand is the linguistic view that understands ‘sausage’ (or indeed ‘sossage’) as meaning only one.

  3. But, but… any Fleischsalat that’s not made purely with Stadtwurst is a crime against… well, blasphemous, in any event. The butcher should have been burnt at the stake!

    (As a child, I hated vinegar so much that I opted out of my family’s Fleischsalat consumption and ate the Stadtwurst with bread.)

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