Talk:Bratwurst

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KF's questions:

(1) "The usual, small 'Bratwursts' were invented in Nuremberg."

Could you please explain? What is "usual" about "small" (how small???) bratwursts? And why Nuremberg? <KF> 21:42, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Nürmberger Würstchen" are smaller than what you usually get when you ask for a Bratwurst. I think they're usually roughly half the size of a "normal" Bratwurst. Most fast food outlets sell the bigger kind as they are also commonly sold as "Currywurst" (Bratwurst with curry ketchup and curry powder). --Ashmodai June 29, 2005 23:34 (UTC)

Sausage makers traditionally use natural casings made from the intestines of pork and sheep. "Nürmberger Würstchen" use sheep casings (18-20 mm). Sheep casings are too small for Sheboygen style brats which use hog casings . -- CB

(2) " [...] which is sold at various fast food outlets and often consumed standing upright."

"Standing upright" doesn't sound very gemütlich, does it? <KF> 01:11, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"Bratwurst" not only denotes fried sausages, but also a special sort of "cold" sausages, as any German could confirm. The difference in taste (as in temperature, haha) is large.

KF's questions end here.

My comment has to do the associated crime of cooking a Bratwurst in a frying pan. Use a real grill like a BBQ or something! If anyone agrees with me, feel free to work this into the article.

Also, Isn't Braut the shorter spelling? Brat implies annoying kids/people etc.

No, Braut is not EVER a shortform unless something went horribly wrong with your gene pool. "Braut" is German for "bride", "Brat" comes from "braten", which means "to fry". A Bratwurst is therefore a fried sausage (opposed to the normal Bockwurst, for example, which is cooked). Either that or it comes from the "Brät" (or whatever the exact name is), which is what sausages are made from, but since the special thing about Bratwurst is that it is fried, I would wager that it's really just "fried sausage" ("gebratene Wurst").

It's usually fried in a pan, except for BBQs, which only regularily happen in the summer only, where it is fried on the grill along with other varieties of meat and the good old baked potatoe. --Ashmodai June 29, 2005 23:34 (UTC)

"Brat(wurst)" comes from "braten"". No, it freaking doesn't. See the first two lines of the article. And a proper bratwurst is done on a grill. Kar98 July 4, 2005 02:55 (UTC)

As I said. "Either that or it comes from the "Brät" (or whatever the exact name is), which is what sausages are made from". Don't misquote me.

It seriously translates into "fried sausage" either way, though, and the fact it is fried is the only difference to an ordinary sausage in the Real World (tm) today (especially because nowadays any sausage that is fried is called a "Bratwurst" in colloquial German, which arguably stems from the other (wrong) etymology, which may very well be a modern construct).

Just as powdered hard cheese is called "Parmesan" in colloquial German whether it actually is from Parma or not (which the EU defined as a main criterium in location-based branding), not every Bratwurst is made the traditional way. If you fry a tofu sausage you might as well call it a "Tofu-Bratwurst" and nobody would look at you funny (except for making fried tofu sausages in the first place).

The grill thing really is a niche group religious issue. BBQ fanatics might fry you if you call anything that wasn't grilled a real Bratwurst, but the rest of the population hardly cares. The bratwurst you get in a typical German Imbiss fast food stand is usually fried on a flat surface that can hardly be called a grill (by that logic, hamburgers from McDonald's or Burger King would be "grilled" as well -- the stripes however happen to be painted on rather than "fried" on).

--Ashmodai 4 July 2005 04:38 (UTC)

I think there is a misunderstanding in the translation between German and American. German gekocht (boiled) is often confused with American cooked. Fried in American is not the same as gebraten it is more like fritiert with the exception of pan fried or griddled, which is what your imbiss does when they gebraten which translates in to American as roasted. In the brat belt (Chicago-Milluaukee), brats are grilled (gegrillt) 12 months round, indoors and out. Although bockwurst is normally boiled (gekocht), the imbiss next to the VW dealer in Spandau deep fries them (fritiert) for currywurst. - CB

My oh my, I have to catch up on the development of articles such as this one which I started a long time ago.

I've got a few questions the answers to which might help clarify various passages in the article:

• Bratwurst are often simply called brats. --> By whom, and where?
• Can we agree on the fact that all bratwursts, no matter in what part of the world they are made, sold, and eaten, cannot be consumed raw, i.e. the way they are when you take them out of the fridge in a supermarket?
• Why is there a capital A in brAt and brAtwurst?
• Is there a plural form bratwursts?
• While in Germany and Austria a bratwurst is actually eaten with bread, isn't it more often eaten as a hot dog, i.e. in bread in English-speaking countries?
• Why are the Nuremberg sausages smaller? Is there some legend or something we could refer to?

<KF> 00:12, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

• I'd wager bratwurst is called "brat" in English speaking countries. It's not a German slang term. At least not in North-Rhine Westphalia.

Certainly it is true for the "brat belt" between Chicago-Milluaukee, whatever language the people speak. - CB

• Bratwurst should not be eaten raw, no. At least it's not considered normal behaviour. I think it's essentially raw meat. Unless you like your meat raw, you don't usually do that.
• There is no capital A in brat or bratwurst. It made me wonder, too. At least there isn't in German. Also there are no umlauts in bratwurst, so don't get any funny idea. bratwürst or stupid attempts like that make it sound Turkish if anything.
• The plural of Bratwurst is "Bratwürste" (or "Bratwuerste", if you can't type umlauts). I'd assume the English plural would be bratwursts or simply bratwurst.

The plural in American for bratwurst is bratwurst and for brat is brats. -CB

• In Germany bratwurst is usually served with a roll (bread, "Brötchen" in German). It's becomming popular to break the roll open and put the sausage inside due to the American influence and some stands actually sell bratwurst like that (usually without a cardboard plate and knife and fork then, just with a napkin). I'd assume bratwurst is sold like that more commonly in English speaking countries (in Germany hotdog stands are incredibly rare, btw).
• I'm not sure about the Nuremberg sausages. Many regions have some special kind of sausage. I guess the people around Nuremberg just preferred the smaller sausages.

-- Ashmodai 12:51, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

"Popular German mustard known as Senf" - Senf is German for "mustard". What other mustard could it be eaten with? — JIP | Talk 18:05, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

The Senf eaten in Thuringia is probably Born Senf by Born Feinkost Erfurt. It is not as sweat as the mustard in Southern Germany that is served with a Weißwurst and does not contain grain of mustard seed.--Hhielscher 18:35, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Were the mustard of any kind whatsoever possible, it would still be called "Senf" in German. — JIP | Talk 11:06, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I cleaned up the German confusion (i.e. Senf, the fact that Bratwust means fried sausage, etc.), however this article still has serious problems. --Scaife 05:13, 02 February 2006 (UTC)

I put the cleanup notification back up after it was removed. This article still needs a lot of cleanup, however if you feel that it doesn't please comment. Scaife 04:38, 06 February 2006 (UTC)

Just a suggestion, but I think it should be made clear that Wisconsin bratwurst is significantly different in taste, preparation and composition from the bratwurst you get in places settled from Southern Germany and Switzerland. Wisconsin bratwurst is red, but the bratwurst of places like Dayton and Cincinnati is gray-white, much more finely ground, and filled with a much gentler blend of herbs and spices; you need a picture that shows the difference. Also, white bratwurst ought to be a lot fatter than your Wisconsin brat and have skins, although admittedly it takes some doing these days to find proper white bratwurst. (And there's nothing nastier than to have your tongue watering for white bratwurst and get the red kind....)

I know this is a Wisconsin-championed entry, but as a resident of Bucyrus, Ohio I made some minor corrections and additions regarding our own version of bratwurst. We use caraway seed, not fennel, and I added a link to our festival. Thanks much! Joegee 00:30, 29 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vegetarian Bratwurst

There's no academic link for vegetarian Bratwurst I'm aware of, but here is a commerical link: Veggie Bratknacker. --Fasten 19:08, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that a revert sometimes needs an explanation, especially in cases where it is clearly not vandalism. I may have never heard of vegetarian bratwurst, but I think it belongs in here. Royalbroil 04:55, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Here is more support for the existance of vegetarian Bratwurst on froogle. --Fasten 17:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Here is a sausage called Thüringen (instead of Thüringer, which is probably a protected name for Bratwurst). --Fasten 17:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

See also: [1] for frequent use of the word "Bratwurst" for vegetarian sausages. --Fasten 12:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarism?

The United States section shares most of its contents with http://www.hideawayinn.com/bratfest.asp. I'm not sure who wrote what (whether it's them or us who's plagiarising), but I thought I'd let you know. Jonemerson 21:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a tagline at the beginning, "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" so I'm guessing they lifted it from here. -JakeApple 22:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)