(, literally 'white sausage'; ; plural ) is a traditional Bavarian sausage made from minced veal and pork fatback. It is usually flavored with parsley, lemon, mace, onions, ginger and cardamom, although there are some variations. The mixture is stuffed into pork casings and separated into individual sausages measuring about in length and in diameter. In Poland, a similar kind of sausage, also named 'white sausage' (), is made from pork instead and most often served on Easter.

As they are not smoked or otherwise preserved they are very perishable. were traditionally manufactured early in the morning and prepared and eaten as a snack between breakfast and lunch. There is a saying that the sausages should not be allowed to hear the noon chime of the church bells. Even today, most Bavarians never eat after lunchtime (though it is perfectly acceptable to have a lunch consisting of ).

The sausages are heated in water, not boiled, until they turn white, as no nitrite is used in preparation.

are brought to the table in a big bowl together with the hot water used for preparation (so they do not cool down too much), then eaten without their skins. Ways of eating include the traditional way, called (Bavarian for sucking), in which each end of the sausage is cut or bitten open, after which the meat is sucked out from the skin. Alternatively, the more popular and more discreet ways of consuming it are by cutting the sausage lengthwise and then "rolling out" the meat from the skin with a fork, or also to open it on one end and consume it very much like a banana, ever opening the peel further and dipping the sausage into the mustard.

is commonly served with a Bavarian sweet mustard () and accompanied by (Bavarian pretzel—often spelled outside Bavaria) and .

, whose consumption traditionally is associated with Bavaria, helped in the coining of a humorous term, (literally, 'white-sausage-equator'), that delineates a cultural boundary separating other linguistic and cultural areas from Southern Germany.

in Poland

is a very similar type of sausage prepared in Poland, but unlike , it is made from pork, especially pork shoulder, neck fat (a cut referred to in Polish as ) and belly. Originating from the Greater Poland region, it has been made as early as the 17th century.

is most commonly served during Easter, alongside horseradish or sour cereal soup (). It is also often included in święconka, traditional baskets of food that are taken to churches in order to be blessed with holy water on Holy Saturday, where it is believed to be symbolic of abundance (meat being historically scarce).

To make , pork shoulder, neck and belly are ground, sometimes with a small amount of beef. Then, the meat mixture is flavoured, most often with salt, garlic, black pepper and marjoram and encased in pork intestines. The sausages have a short shelf life and need to be cooked or roasted before consumption.

See also

List of veal dishes White hot

References

External links

Food from Bavaria published by the Bavarian Dept. for agriculture and forests The correct treatment of a - essay about preparing and eating properly (PDF file)