The Vienna sausage stand is a place where the street sweeper, the manager, the tourist, and the celebrity converge for the same tasty snack, the AP reports. The culture of the humble "Würstelstand" became this week one of the latest additions to the national list of intangible cultural heritage, overseen by the Austrian UNESCO Commission. It joins the Austrian capital's distinctive wine taverns, or "Heurigen," which have been listed since 2019, and the city's famous coffee house culture, which was honored in 2011.
The Würstelstand, which can now point to a history going back generations, is more than just a source of greasy gastronomic satisfaction. The street stand is known for bringing people of many classes and backgrounds together and has its own distinctive vocabulary. Meet the "Haasse," a coarse boiled sausage, and also the "Käsekrainer"—a smoked creation infused with cheese that oozes out, also sometimes known as the "Eitrige," or "suppurating" sausage. There is also the "Oaschpfeiferl," a spicy pepperoni, and the "Krokodü," a gherkin.
"Sausage stands have a long history in Vienna," said Josef Bitzinger, whose Bitzinger Würstelstand is located next to the Albertina museum and just behind the Vienna State Opera. The tradition goes back to the pre-World War I days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when former soldiers set up mobile cookshops to make a living. The city's longest-lived stall in a fixed location, Würstelstand Leo, has been serving up sausages since 1928. The stands developed into a bigger institution after wider-ranging permission for fixed stalls was granted in 1969.
(More
Vienna stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
