Travelling around Austria with a Local - #015 A Half-Serious Guide to Viennese Sausage-Stands

The pus-filled one with a crocodile, please!

Hi, servus - and welcome to my blog Travelling Around Austria with a Local!

I'm Theodora from Austria. Together with friends from abroad, I'm exploring my home country - and I talk about its beauty and its curiosities. In the fifteenth episode, I will give you an insight into the culinary curiosities of Austria - of course, there'll be sausage and other incredibly healthy food. So, let's start with our journey through Austria's kitchens and fast food shops!

Sausage stands in Vienna

Vienna is known for its sausage stands - and they are loved by the Viennese regardless of their social status. This shows particularly after the Opera Ball, when lots and lots of people in tails and expensive designer dresses flock together to have one last sausage and some beer (or champagne) before they go to bed. It goes without saying that such an important place has its own vocabulary. So in case you should feel a bit peckish in Vienna, here's your ultimate survival guide.

"The pus-filled one with a hunchback"

How to order in Austrian German: "A Eitrige mit an Buggl und an Gschissenen"
Pronunciation: [Ah eye-trig-gay mit an boogle oond an g-shee-sarn-nayn]
Literal translation: A pus-filled one with a hunchback and a shitty one
Meaning: Is this only something for brave people like Anthony Bourdain? No, in fact it isn't. It's a pork sausage containing cheese (the pus) with the heel of a loaf of bread (which looks like a hunchback). Of course you need a bit of the shitty one (sweet mustard - just imagine mustard on a plate and I guess you'll see why it's called that in Viennese dialect)
Tip from the local: You might want to order a "16-er Blech" [sekh-tsayn-are blekh] with it - it's a beer brewed in Vienna's 16th district (hence the 16er) served in a can (Blech).

A pus-filled one with a shitty one, as they say in Vienna. Picture: Wikimedia Commons/Kobako

Would you like a crocodile or a green mamba?

So pus and shit are nice of course - but what about having a crocodile or maybe a green mamba as a side dish?

Don't worry - you don't have to fight reptiles that could easily kill you.
This is the Krokodü (crocodile)...

Green, long, and not too smooth - quite obviously a crocodile! Picture by Pixabay/SoFuego

...and this is the green mamba:

Green, thin, and long - this is the Grüne Mamba (green mamba). Picture by Pixabay/41330
By the way: If the green mamba is really spicy, you can refer to it as an "Oaschpfeiferl" ("arse whistle").

A thousand words for beer and cigarettes?

While it is an urban legend that the Inuit have thousands of words for snow, it is true that the Austrians have lots and lots of words for beer - at least in their dialect. Here are three of them:

• Gerstensaft (barley juice)
• Hopfenblütentee (hops blossom tea)
• Hülsn (a husk - referring to the tin)

Many Austrians enjoy smoking a cigarette while drinking their beer. Here are four more or less common dialect words for cigarettes (in case you're asked for one or you would like to ask for one):

• Tschick (pronounced like "chick". Now here's the important part: If someone asks you if you have a Tschick, they neither want to know if you have a girlfriend nor do they assume you're a pimp!)
• Beuschelreißer [bye-shell-rise-are]: Beuschel is a dish, which is cooked with lungs - so I guess you could translate this one as "lung-tearer"
• Lungentorpedo: I think there's no need to translate this one.
• Friedhofsspargel [freed-hoves-shpar-gayle]: Cemetery asparagus.

So, I hope you're ready to order some food in Vienna now! Have a great time in Vienna and: Pfiat di, bis zum nächsten Mal!

Vienna's most famous Würstelstand (sausage stand) from a distance - just follow the green rabbit. Picture by @theodora.austria