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Sausage Squabble

DW staff (jc)May 27, 2008

"It's about the sausage" is German idiom meaning that the matter at hand is really, really important. But two men from the city of Muenster took the saying literally, engaging in fisticuffs over a bratwurst.

https://p.dw.com/p/E6x8
Star chef Horst Lichter with a Bratwurst
A pair of tongs can be a useful weapon in a food fight...Image: picture-alliance/ ZB

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to engage in violence. You can fight for your life, your country, your future, your right to party and certainly a sausage -- if it's the last one left at a barbeque.

But fighting over mustard?

Two German men thought the condiment was important enough to get physical about.

Model with a bratwurst
...a fork ain't shabby eitherImage: AP

The incident occurred at a discotheque in Muenster, when a 23-year-old order a Bratwurst with plenty of hot stuff. Displeased with the amount of yellow on his wiener, the man first demanded more, then tried to take matters into his own hands by grabbing a tube of mustard.

The sausage vendor objected, and things took their course, with the two alleged members of homo sapiens hitting and trying to strangle one another. They also threw sausages and squirted mustard on each other's clothing.

Police intervened before the situation turned fatal.

The combatants were charged with misdemeanour, then released. Neither were injured, police said, just a little black and blue -- and, of course, yellow.