Germany's Favorite Fastfood

All over Germany, you can find American fastfood restaurants: McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, etc. No Chik-fil-A unfortunately. But hamburgers, fried chicken and pizza are not the fastfood of choice of Germans.

Depending on which article you read, Germany's favorite fastfood may or may not be currywurst, the traditional snack of sliced pork sausage swimming in a curry-tomato sauce.  In August of last year, the dish was immortalized in the new Deutsches Currywurst Museum in Berlin, a sausage shrine dedicated to all things currywurst, including sausage sofas, a curry "spice chamber" and a movie montage of all-time currywurst cameos. The museum opened commemorating the dish's 60th birthday.

No two Germans will likely agree on the perfect currywurst. There are different variations of curry and some prefer their currywurst with French fried while others opt for break. There's just one no-no: ketchup. Germans consider it uncultured and inauthentic. 

Today, David needed to run a lunchtime errand in Kelkheim, the nearby town where we discovered the tastiest version of the other fastfood dish that sometimes claims the prize of "Germany's favorite fast food."

David was instructed that he was not allowed to return home from his errand without two yummy Döner kebabs.  Döner kebabs are a Turkish dish made of lamb meat cooked on a vertical spit and sliced off to order, similar to a Greek gyro.

Typically, along with the meat, a Döner includes chopped lettuce, cabbage, onions, cucumber, and tomatoes, and a choice of sauces. Today David chose yogurt and I stuck with garlic. The meat and salad filling is served in thick, toasted flatbread.

Germany's large Turkish minority is probably the biggest reason for the widespread sale of Döner kebab sandwiches. After World War II, large numbers of Turks were invited to come to Germany as guest workers, to fill a then acute labor shortage caused by the loss of manpower in the war. Most of these Turkish workers eventually stayed in Germany, and many opened small food shops and food stands.

We first went to this particular restaurant last December and the owner seemed very pleased to be serving two Americans and questioned us about the popularity of Döners in the U.S. It was difficult to have to tell him that gyros were much more popular, but Americans didn't know what they were missing! He joined us at the tables outside and we chatted some more, in between our "Mmmm......s" as we ate the delectable döners.