Meat of the museum

Berlin is a historic metropolis with more than its share of museums. From the famous Pergamon Museum to the Schwules Museum (or Museum of Gayness). There’s even a DDR (that’s GDR to you) Museum. The Museuminsel or ‘Museum Island’ district on the river Spree is itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The latest addition to the city’s cultural institutions pays homage to an iconic product of post-war German consumerism: the humble and (unless you’re German) horrible Currywurst. Why a people who had already perfected the occult arts of sausage sauerkraut and mustard manufacture went mad about this worcester-ketchup-curry powder slathered bratwurst is a puzzle. Perhaps a yearning for cheap cosmopolitan flavours in the pallid 1950s when West Berliners were emerging from the rubble of the war and coming to terms with their cold-war isolation. Call it a monument to bad taste, but if you are a connoisseur of popular culture, this affectionate and imaginative Pop art-inspired museum will tell you everything you didn’t know about Berlin’s favourite and very worst wurst. See www.currywurstmuseum.de.