Vienna’s popular sausage stand receives UNESCO recognition

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The Austrian UNESCO The commission announced this week that the sausage stand had been added to the national list of intangible cultural heritage, placing it alongside the city’s popular Heurigen and its famous wine bars Coffee house culturewhich were listed in 2019 and 2011 respectively.

For decades, the sausage stand has been a meeting place for locals and tourists alike, where the street sweeper, the office manager, the celebrity and the curious traveler come together over their shared love of Vienna’s signature snacks. Known for their casual yet welcoming atmosphere, the stalls have become a symbol of the city’s diverse social fabric.

The most popular offerings at the sausage stand include the “Haasse,” a coarse boiled sausage, and the “Käsekrainer,” a smoked sausage filled with cheese that melts and oozes out when you bite into it and is often affectionately called “purulent” or “purulent sausage.” There is also the spicy “Oaschpfeiferl”, a pepperoni sausage, and the “Krokodü”, a pickled cucumber.

“Sausage stands have a long history Viennasaid Josef Bitzinger, whose Bitzinger sausage stand is next to the Albertina, directly behind the Vienna State Opera.

“Originally it was just a bucket of hot water with the sausages floating in it,” he said. They were sold to their place in “small dog-drawn carriages and larger horse-drawn carriages, later a VW bus or a tractor.”

But the sausage stand is more than just a place to eat. It is a cultural institution with a long history dating back to Austro-Hungarian Empire. The tradition of roadside sausage stands began with former soldiers who set up mobile food stalls to make a living after the First World War. The city’s longest-running stand, the Leo sausage stand, was in action Sausages since 1928.

The sausage stand became even more firmly anchored in Viennese culture in 1969 when regulations were changed to allow permanent stands. This change led to the invention of the Käsekrainer, which, according to Bitzinger, is “already a classic.”

The UNESCO award “recognizes the tradition, hospitality and diversity of our city,” Mayor Michael Ludwig said in a statement.

“This title is recognition for all Viennese people who, with their warmth and charm, make the sausage stands more than just a snack stop – a meeting place where joy of life and culture come together.”

“We fought for this for a long time,” said Bitzinger about the new UNESCO award and emphasized the importance of the sausage stand as “a form of gastronomy that everyone can afford.”

“Here the general manager and a celebrity during the opera ball are standing next to a worker and the street sweeper who has just finished cleaning the streets,” he explained. “That’s what connects us.”