Uwe Timm, The Invention of Curried Sausage
I haven't found out to what extent this novella is "accurate" about the invention of curried sausage, which I gather is a popular dish served at food kiosks in Germany, but I don't really care. (I'm interested, but I don't Need To Know.)
What fascinated me was the relatively nonpolitical treatment of life inside Germany under Hitler, at the very end of the Second World War. I say "relatively nonpolitical": it's the story of a deserter (being sheltered by a woman almost his mother's age who becomes his lover), there are some unsettling references to trainloads of Jews being sent out of the cities, and there's some debate about the first pictures coming out of the concentration camps. It's worth reading, I think, strictly for the portrait of Germany.
But Lena Brucker (how do I make an umlaut on here??) is a treat. An elderly woman telling her story retrospectively to an unnamed narrator, she forces him through the power of story, nothing more, to remain longer than he would like, simply to hear more of the story. He wants the answer to a simple question: did she invent curried sausage, and if so, when? She has a much longer story in mind, one that includes subtle resistance during WW2, post-war economics, 1940s gender relations, etc., and the great thing is that she makes him listen.
I haven't tried to make the dish yet (p. 211, curry from a prepared tin, plus "ketchup, nutmeg, aniseed, black pepper, and fresh mustard seed," cooked in a frying pan with sliced skinless veal sausage), but I know what I want it to smell like....
What fascinated me was the relatively nonpolitical treatment of life inside Germany under Hitler, at the very end of the Second World War. I say "relatively nonpolitical": it's the story of a deserter (being sheltered by a woman almost his mother's age who becomes his lover), there are some unsettling references to trainloads of Jews being sent out of the cities, and there's some debate about the first pictures coming out of the concentration camps. It's worth reading, I think, strictly for the portrait of Germany.
But Lena Brucker (how do I make an umlaut on here??) is a treat. An elderly woman telling her story retrospectively to an unnamed narrator, she forces him through the power of story, nothing more, to remain longer than he would like, simply to hear more of the story. He wants the answer to a simple question: did she invent curried sausage, and if so, when? She has a much longer story in mind, one that includes subtle resistance during WW2, post-war economics, 1940s gender relations, etc., and the great thing is that she makes him listen.
I haven't tried to make the dish yet (p. 211, curry from a prepared tin, plus "ketchup, nutmeg, aniseed, black pepper, and fresh mustard seed," cooked in a frying pan with sliced skinless veal sausage), but I know what I want it to smell like....
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