Vienna sausage stand given UNESCO heritage recognition

The Vienna sausage stand is a place where the street sweeper, the manager, the tourist and the celebrity converge for the same tasty snack. Now it also has the official stamp of approval as part of Austria's heritage.

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 honoured 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 peperoni, 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.

"Originally it was just a bucket with hot water in which the sausages used to swim," he said. They were sold from "small carriages drawn by dogs and bigger ones drawn by horses, later by a VW bus or a tractor to their spot."

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.

It was then that the griddle was introduced and the cheesy Käsekrainer invented, Bitzinger said.

"Today that's already a classic."

Vienna mayor Michael Ludwig said the UNESCO designation "honours the tradition, the hospitality and the diversity of our city."

"This title is a recognition for all those Viennese who, with their warmth and their charm, make the sausage stands more than just a snack place - a meeting place where joie de vivre and culture come together."