I’ve recently rediscovered liverwurst and have been taking liverwurst sandwiches for lunch. I bought some at a nice little butcher - it’s much better than the grocery stuff in a tube. I put it on whole-grain bread with sliced radishes, cucumber, greens, mayo and mustard. Yum.
Universally, the reaction to liverwurst appears to be “eww, yuck.” Do that many people actually dislike the taste, or are they just reacting to the idea of anything made from liver?
Next week I’ll be alternating liverwurst with sardines (which I also like, plus they are very nutritious) on my sandwiches. I imagine I’ll get the same reaction from everyone around me. Note to self: pack breath mints to combat sardine-breath.
I’m a liver wurst fan myself. But my local stores only carry Braunsweiger, which is not the same thing. If I want good liver wurst I need to drive to South St. Louis and visit G&W Sausage. They’ve got the good stuff. It’s a 100 mile round trip, but worth it.
Liverwurst on rye with mustard! That’s some major yum. But like WhyNot said, the fat content discourages me from eating it more than every couple of years.
Another liverwurst lover here . . . though it’s not conducive to losing weight. But I haven’t had it in a long while; think I’ll pick some up when I go shopping later.
Liverwurst = yum but it’s appallingly bad for you so it’s an occasional indulgence.
Oddly I really don’t care for liver in other applications. Chopped chicken liver (yuck), fried beef liver (yuck), foie gras (yuck), pate that includes goose liver (yuck). So my love of liverwurst is a bit anachronistic.
I’m more of a fan of braunswieger which, while not exactly liverwurst, is at least a kissing cousin to it. I also like sardines. And pickled herring. And lots of other stuff that, apparently, makes many go “yuck”.
Just the opposite - love liverwurst but can’t stand the smell or taste of liver.
In Germany they had all sorts of liverwurst - finely ground, coarsely ground, with truffles or with pieces of apricot or any number of other ingredients and spices.
Oh, hell yeah to liverwurst and any type of liver pate/spread/terrine. It’s a bit on the calorie-dense side, so I don’t eat as much of it as I like to, but, on the plus side, lots of iron!
I had a thread about this maybe a year ago. Through it I learned to slice it and saute/brown it in a pan, like foie gras. It tastes great, although it really smells up the place. It also cooks out some of the fat. Someone in that other thread said that in Germany it’s served with red jam, which I’ve tried using lingonberry preserves, and it was great. It helps cut the saltiness.
Errr . . . maybe anomalous? However, I will seize on “anachronistic” for another reason. I’m old enough to have the entirely-imprecise notion/impression that the view of liverwurst as odd or “out there” or gross is of pretty recent vintage, maybe last 25 years.
When I was very young I remember liverwurst being in our refrigerator pretty regularly, and my mother was neither German nor very adventurous or gourmet in her culinary leanings at all. It was lunchmeat, just like baloney and Cotto salami. If your mother put it in your school lunch, some kids might not care for it but it would not be like coming into the cafeteria with something exotic or nasty (say a Limburger sandwich). And, we ate calves’ liver and onions for dinner once a month or so – didn’t love it, but didn’t refuse to eat it (well, couldn’t).
My tentative theory is that the broad middle class tapered off on eating organ meats or anything “weird” as the last generation of adults who had been raised by old school home cooks who were working with Depression era and earlier farm ethos that you have to eat what’s cheap and not waste any part of an animal passed the baton to baby boomers and their successors who were raised on the sort of limited late '50s Birdseye/bland middle-American diet that endured through – I dunno, the '80s, other than at elite levels (i.e., the handful of dedicated gourmet enthusiasts who watched Julia Child, etc. on PBS).
Right about then, the current foodie revolution (with all the bad and good that implies) was starting to take off, so eating either exotic forms of liver (pate) or more humble nose-to-tail forms (liverwurst) arguably became the province of the expanding foodie sub-population, while remaining a little suspect/exotic/gross to the broad middle who’s not part of that population yet. WAG of course.
More cogently: Yes, sandwich, toasted wheat bread with onion slices. Best done on the weekend and not at work.
When I was young and foolish I thought “Worst than liver? No way am I eating that!” and the one time I was persuaded to taste some it was an awful “deli” liverwurst-- cheap, no-name you buy at the corner store liverwurst.
And then one day in college, I accidentally tasted someone’s Boar’s Head liverwurst and provolone with mustard on a kaiser roll sandwich. Good liverwurst is really, really good.
I love it but I can’t eat it, because one sammich is not enough and I think my heart would just quit if I ate enough to be satisfied. So I live with the memories…
Liverwurst, leverpostei, deviled ham, I like it all. I don’t like when you have a can that is a day or two old and all that fat goes to the surface, and the rest of the visible parts oxidize.
