Sausage Protectors

Those interfering Europeans are at it again.

Less than two weeks ago, a major diplomatic incident was avoided when the European Union allowed the German specialty Apfelwein to continue being known as a wine. It was a close call. If the EU had pushed through with its idea to bless only those drinks made from grapes with the term, the forces of the state of Hessen would have risen up and gotten really, really angry.

Luckily, for everyone involved and the wider world in general, the Eurocrats and the overly-protective Germans called off hostilities and avoided a potentially deadly exchange of handbags.

Now, however, it seems as though the EU is set on provoking further German ire by targeting the sacred currywurst.

As a German-wide culinary phenomenon, the EU believes that the delicacy -- a fried pork sausage cut into slices drowned in ketchup, curry and tomato concentrate -- can be made, cooked and sold under the term anywhere in the country.

Berlin butchers want to claim capital as currywurst's home

A group of Berlin butchers have another idea and have joined together to patent the currywurst sausage.

The butchers' objective is to "geographically" protect their culinary invention, the 1949 creation of one Herta Heuwer, a Berliner who served her snack day and night in the western part of the then divided city.

They want the spot of her famous food stall, which was an institution at the time, to be officially recognized as the home of the currywurst.

The potential spat is still at the diplomatic level and has not yet reached the bellicose rhetoric of the Apfelwein Rebellion of early November. The sausage separatists have so far followed the protocol laid down by the UN Savory Snack Council and have filed a patent request with the European Patent Office.

Even if the Currywurst Crisis is averted on a pan-European level, there are still fears that a civil sausage war could break out between states and regions in Germany.

North could make a claim against Berlin patent

Northern German states and cities would be those most likely to take offense to the Berlin claim should the patent be agreed. The currywurst enjoys cult status in many areas and some believe its birthplace to be further north than the capital.

The tension is unlikely to abate any time soon. The patent application procedure lasts between two and three years.