The invention of currywurst is attributed to Herta Heuwer in Berlin in 1949, after she obtained ketchup, or possibly Worcestershire sauce, and curry powder from British soldiers in Germany. She mixed these ingredients with other spices and poured them over grilled pork sausage. Heuwer started selling them at a stand in Charlottenburg, where it became popular with construction workers rebuilding the devastated city.
Heuwer patented her sauce under the name Chillup in 1951. At its height the stand was selling 10,000 servings per week. She later opened a small restaurant which operated until 1974. On 30 June 2013, Heuwer’s 100th birthday was celebrated with a Google Doodle.
Today, currywurst is often sold as a take-out/take-away food, Schnellimbisse (snack stands), at diners or “greasy spoons,” on children’s menus in restaurants, or as a street food and usually served with chips or bread rolls (Brötchen). It is popular all over Germany but especially in the metropolitan areas of Berlin, Hamburg and the Ruhr Area. Considerable variation, both in the type of sausage used and the ingredients of the sauce, occurs between these areas.
Common variations include the addition of paprika or chopped onions. Halal food stands often prepare currywurst with beef sausage. Often currywurst is sold in food booths, sometimes using a special machine to slice it into pieces, and served on a paper plate with a little wooden or plastic fork, mostly a currywurst fork. It is sold as a supermarket-shelf product to prepare at home.
The Deutsches Currywurst Museum estimated that 800 million currywursts are eaten every year in Germany, with 70 million in Berlin alone. The Volkswagen plant at Wolfsburg runs its own butchery, producing about 7 million Volkswagen currywursts per year, serving many directly to Volkswagen employees.
