Nürnberger sausage love.

This Christmas A and I decided to travel to Nuremberg to experience Europe’s biggest Christmas market. After all, no one does Christmas markets quite like Continental Europe and if you have ever been, you know what I mean! It’s a food coma mixed with hot spicy drinks and just an overall exciting feeling of jollyness. A and I went to countless museums, ate more than anyone should ever eat and used the time together strolling through the cute little old town of Nuremberg.

One of my favorite stories from Nuremberg was told to me by our cabdriver. He asked me if I knew why Nuremberger sausages were so thin. I of course had no idea. So my cabdriver proceeded to explaining to me, the most wonderful cab-story I have ever heard in my life.

According to my cabby, a long time ago, the mayor of Nuremberg was imprisoned for whatever reason, probably ate too much sausages… But being only human he had a never ending craving for sausages. Not just sausages, but sausages made by his personal chef! The chef of course knew how much the mayor loved his sausages and knew that the mayor would probably die of a broken heart if he didn’t get his sausages. But what was the chef to do? He couldn’t just walk into prison with three hundred sausages, the guards would take them from him and eat them themselves and then he might be enslaved to a life of making sausages for everyone but his beloved mayor.

So the chef made his vicious plan, trying to figure out the best way to bring the sausages to the mayor. He had to be smart about it and should attract as little attention as possible! The cell doors back then were solid, no slid for tablets or fancy bars, like you have them nowadays. Just a tiny key-hole. But could he…? No! That was unheard of! But for love, one tries everything.

The chef worked day and night, thinking hard about how he could possibly bring the sausages to his mayor. And one day, he tried the impossible! He tried what has until then been unheard of! He made tiny little sausages, that would easily fit through a key-hole, so his mayor wouldn’t have to starve to death of tasteless pretzels.

One day, the chef, smartly storing the sausages in his chef’s hat went to the prison to talk to his mayor about… well, food-related stuff? The guards were suspicious, but how focus can you stay when drinking at least 3 liters of beer a day? The chef knew, he had to act quickly, so the second the guards weren’t looking, he stuffed miles and miles of sausage links through the key-hole. The mayor, on the other side of the door ate the sausages as quickly as possible and for the first time since his imprisonment felt the love again, that only sausages could give him.

Long story, short: Next time you eat Nuremberg sausages remind yourself, that someone in Good Old Germany loved sausages so much, he couldn’t live without them and his chef, couldn’t bear the thought of his mayor not ever getting to eat any of his sausages again. This also explains why Nurembergers often are presented on a love-shaped plate in Germany…