At its heart, Currywurst serves as another reminder that, for much of its history, large swaths of Europe vacillated under different modes of imperial governance, regions like the Alsace flipping back and forth every couple of decades. This is one significant stage of the seismic changes that shaped the continent’s modern foodways; another is the more recent, more insidious feedback of colonial expansion, by which the continent put a release valve on it’s internal pressures by running rampant across the rest of the world. This kind of free rein has lead, by a circuitous route, to strange curiosities like the Dutch “War Potatoes,” (Patatjes Oorlog), which I did not manage to sample on my last trip to Amsterdam.
I cannot deny that mayonnaise and peanut sauce is a weird combo, recalling something I would have whipped up as an overcurious eight year old pressing the boundaries of my limited kitchen pantry. In this case, the at-home version (I skipped the onions) was strange but serviceable, although I admittedly had not tasted the real thing, and so was flying blind. I do think I got the general idea, however, although I can’t say it struck any special gustatory chords for me. I thus remain unconverted on the pairing of peanut and mayo, although I again assume the appeal here is largely rooted in nostalgic familiarity with the ingredients employed. Whatever the case, these two dishes represented several hundred years of European strife, all summed up in one night of culinary experimentation.