VIENNA — The Vienna sausage stand is a spot the place the road sweeper, the supervisor, the vacationer and the celeb converge for a similar tasty snack. Now it additionally has the official stamp of approval as a part of Austria’s heritage.
The tradition of the standard “Würstelstand” turned this week one of many newest additions to the nationwide checklist of intangible cultural heritage, overseen by the Austrian UNESCO Fee. It joins the Austrian capital’s distinctive wine taverns, or “Heurigen,” which have been listed since 2019, and the town’s well-known espresso home tradition, which was honored in 2011.
The Würstelstand, which may now level to a historical past going again generations, is greater than only a supply of greasy gastronomic satisfaction.
The road stand is thought for bringing individuals of many lessons and backgrounds collectively and has its personal distinctive vocabulary.
Meet the “Haasse,” a rough boiled sausage, and in addition the “Käsekrainer” — a smoked creation infused with cheese that oozes out, additionally generally often called the “Eitrige,” or “suppurating” sausage. There may be additionally the “Oaschpfeiferl,” a spicy peperoni, and the “Krokodü,” a gherkin.
“Sausage stands have an extended historical past in Vienna,” mentioned Josef Bitzinger, whose Bitzinger Würstelstand is positioned subsequent to the Albertina museum and simply behind the Vienna State Opera.
“Initially it was only a bucket with sizzling water through which the sausages used to swim,” he mentioned. They have been offered from “small carriages drawn by canine and greater ones drawn by horses, later by a VW bus or a tractor to their spot.”
The custom goes again to the pre-World Battle I days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when former troopers arrange cellular cookshops to make a dwelling. The town’s longest-lived stall in a hard and fast location, Würstelstand Leo, has been serving up sausages since 1928. The stands developed into an even bigger establishment after wider-ranging permission for fastened stalls was granted in 1969.
It was then that the griddle was launched and the tacky Käsekrainer invented, Bitzinger mentioned. “Immediately that’s already a traditional.”
The UNESCO designation “honors the custom, the hospitality and the variety of our metropolis,” Mayor Michael Ludwig mentioned in an announcement.
“This title is a recognition for all these Viennese who, with their heat and their appeal, make the sausage stands greater than only a snack place — a gathering place the place joie de vivre and tradition come collectively.”
Bitzinger mentioned that “we now have been combating a very long time for this.”
“The particular factor about it’s that it’s a type of gastronomy all people can afford,” he mentioned. “Right here the final director and, throughout the opera ball, a star stands subsequent to a employee and the road sweeper who simply completed cleansing the road. That unites individuals.”
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Related Press author Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
