Thuringer Rostbratwurst

The Thüringer is a medium-fine sausage of trimmed pork and pork cheek, sometimes with veal or beef, sold raw or scalded. Salt and pepper season it, and depending on the district caraway, marjoram or garlic join them. Each one is at least 15 cm long and weighs 100 to 150 g, in a narrow natural casing.

The EU registers Thüringer Rostbratwurst as a PGI. German Wikipedia gives 6 January 2004 for the registration, while the EU register's protection date reads 15 May 2002. The first rules said at least 51 percent of the raw material had to come from Thuringia, and that clause was dropped in 2012 on the grounds that the sausage's reputation rests on Thuringian butchers' skill and recipes.

Thuringia's claim to an old tradition rests on a document in the state archive at Rudolstadt. It copies the accounts of a provost of the Walpurgis convent near Arnstadt, and an entry dated 20 January 1404 records one groschen paid for sausage casings. The German Bratwurst Museum opened at Holzhausen in 2006 and moved to a new building in Mühlhausen, which opened on 16 August 2023.