36 Comments

  1. Alex
    February 15, 2015 @ 2:08 pm

    I think the Germans do have something like Spam, they just don’t call it Spam. I have found “Opas Weißer” in South Germany, which looks quite similar to Spam. It contains mostly pork boiled in its own juice, a nitrite salting mix, spices, rinds of bacon and onions. The Germans put it canning jars, though.

    Source: http://www.frankenwurst.de/produktdetails/product/opas-weisser-200g.html

  2. kelly
    November 25, 2013 @ 7:30 pm

    Yup, had it, love it, trying to perfect it at home. My husband is Austrian, he took me to the Tirol to meet his family before we got married. We live in Canada and are going to be opening a little European food booth at a local farmers market and one of the things I want to offer is Fleischkäse including the one with the little lumps of swiss cheese, soooo good!! shame you didn’t try it with the oozy cheeselololol! We found a deli in Scarborough that offers Fleischkäse, the right flavour and texture they just don’t have the wonderful Estragon mustard so readily available in Austria, not so much here unfortunately, oh well, we make do with Thomy.

    • Andrew
      December 2, 2013 @ 10:52 pm

      Wow that is an ambitious plan. I have always thought of Fleishkaese as the leftovers of some other butchery process smacked together and sold. So much like a hot dog and yet higher quality.

  3. butch
    December 2, 2012 @ 7:11 pm

    We tried some at Disneyworld recently, in Epcot’s German restaurant, and I am glad I didn’t skip it lying there next to the Sauerbraten. It was amazing. I agree with your correlation to a hot dog, with one exception–we’re talking the best dog you’ve ever had at an American baseball game, etc. It is not on par with Oscar Mayer’s cold fat-filled floppy meat dog. If you’ve ever been to a ball game and wolfed down what you found to be an exceptional frank (remember, they came from Frankfurters, right?), made with quality meat and an acceptably small amount of fat, you’ve experienced what Leberkase or Fleischkase is. Basically Fleischkase is the equivalent to the American bologna, and Fleischwurst is the equivalent to the American hotdog or Frankfurter. But they don’t taste like bologna. They are nothing like SPAM, though. Spam is much more like ham, thus its name. And it’s saltier and fattier and much less healthy. I didn’t see a high percentage of fat in fleischkase recipes, other than a little bacon. It also is not akin to America’s meatloaf, although that’s what the chef called it–meatloaf is Hackbraten, and is very much more recognizable to its hamburger roots and consistency, as it’s not blended like a good dog or Fleischkase. I guess if I had to explain it to anyone, I’d say it’s a frankfurter loaf.

  4. Marc
    June 21, 2011 @ 1:35 pm

    Best way of having Fleischkäse is to got to the butcher and get the “Brät” (the ready-to-bake meat paste). Sweep the Brät as thin layer (about 1 inch) on a baking tray and put it in the oven. This way you will get an improved paste/crust ratio.

    • Andrew
      June 22, 2011 @ 7:31 pm

      Ha cool idea. I didn’t realize that you can buy the paste and cook it yourself. So you can make a plate of “only ends” like that.

  5. David
    May 28, 2011 @ 10:45 am

    Yeah, Spam is pretty much unheard of in Western Europe (well, maybe it is in Britain, they eat weird things over there). I can’t talk for Eastern Europe.

    Strangely and while I find 90% of American food disgusting, I tried Spam and it was not as bad as I thought. Oh, it was bad, but no worse than many other things in the US food-wise. 🙂

    • Andrew
      May 30, 2011 @ 3:00 am

      I have had German friends swear they have seen it in Germany, but I wonder heavily if it just came from a nearby army base somehow. I dont really think about looking it, so haven’t noticed it in the stores. I like your description “bad, but on par with other US foods”.

  6. Denise
    May 12, 2011 @ 4:09 pm

    Stumbled on this post via Sabrina’s ‘like’ on fb. Gosh, who knew such a lengthy correspondence could arise about hotdogs and their shape 🙂

    Very entertaining though!

    Denise

    • Andrew
      May 13, 2011 @ 9:27 pm

      Welcome. 🙂 Fleischkäse isn’t hotdog, but that is the closest thing an American might know. Thanks for coming by.

  7. Annie
    May 6, 2011 @ 4:12 pm

    Is it wrong to say I kinda miss hotdogs? The only ones we can find here are the wurst (which are just sliced hotdogs) on PIZZA! Wtf, Italy.

    I think the pizza Fleischkase sounds kinda good! Anyway, I’m glad that you have discovered that it’s more quality than spam.

    House raising sounds fun, I like bottles of champagne, although I think smashing them against a house is a bit wasteful! 😉

    • Andrew
      May 8, 2011 @ 5:43 pm

      Nope no shame in that. I saw that in Italy. With french fries and hotdog bits on pizza. It looked somehow really awful. I wonder though, since what I saw was labeled as Wurstel in German it is somehow the reverse of how Germans make things Bolognese with meat sauce. There is a dish there that is potatoes bolognese, sliced fried potatoes with a meat sauce. It is pretty decent, but certainly not from Bologna.

      I will have to try the pizza Fleschkäse the next time I see it. The one place I know had it, just closed, so I’ll have to look around. I’m sure they didn’t use a really expensive bottle of champagne.

  8. Laurel
    May 6, 2011 @ 4:11 pm

    You’re much braver than I am. Haven’t tried it and although I try to embrace a lot of things in Germany, Fleischkäse won’t be one of them. My German fiance hasn’t heard of SPAM either and looked revolted when I explained to him what it was.

    • Andrew
      May 8, 2011 @ 5:38 pm

      I thought the same thing. It really isn’t much different than a hotdog, just in a bigger slice and square. Pretty good on a roll. I don’t know how much salt goes into Fleischkäse, but Spam is awful in that respect. I may try to fry some fleischkäse just to see what it is like.

  9. Ariana
    May 5, 2011 @ 2:10 am

    We did try it, but having some personal prejudices against processed meats, I wasn’t as into it as my four year old. She loved it, along with all German meat products. We regularly ordered leberkase for her as well, glad to see that there was something almost as cheap and easy as “pommes.”

  10. GoingKraut
    May 4, 2011 @ 7:40 pm

    I ate them day and night as a student in Germany. It was one of the few sources of protein. They are great with sweet mustard and I always found it tasted like warm baloney.

    • Andrew
      May 4, 2011 @ 10:01 pm

      Oh. so it is like Ramen? Although not so much protein in Ramen, nor is it good with mustard. So maybe not so much in common. Actually I try to not think of baloney when I eat Fleischkäse. That is one taste I have no interest in ever again. Fried Baloney was a thing they made us eat as a kid. ugh.

  11. Makukn
    May 4, 2011 @ 9:15 am

    Glad you enjoyed your first Fleischkäse!
    I can’t stand it…
    In our region in Northern Germany it is just not that popular – I remember when I first saw it in the early 70s when I was a kid, being sent to a convalescent home at Norderney (a small island in the North Sea) where I was forced to eat very odd food to gain weight and a more stabile constitution after a pneumonia…

    They tried to convince me that Fleischkäse was a special treat from Bavaria – as many of the other kids were from Southern Germany and they wanted to make them feel more at home.
    And I hated it.

    Needless to say that it took me a couple of years to get used to the texture and the taste. And we still do have a love-hate relationship.

    I have to go to many house raisings… but I have never been to one or any other party where they served Fleischkäse.
    There are other specialties in my region – and that is something I am really grateful for *lol*…

    • Andrew
      May 4, 2011 @ 9:58 pm

      This house raising was from an American friend of mine and his German wife. And we live pretty freaking far into the South of Germany, so perhaps it is normal or perhaps it is just his nod to the American grill party.

      I associate the north with more Frikadele and Roulade than Wurst actually. Maybe that is part of it.

  12. Yelli
    May 4, 2011 @ 8:06 am

    The hubby can’t get enough of Fleischkäse. They sell it in almost every beer garden here in Berlin smothered in mustard. (not that there are that many)

    Even Rogacki, a famous Berlin deli and fishmarkt, has its own Fleischkäse!

    I liked it though. once. 🙂

    • Andrew
      May 4, 2011 @ 9:49 pm

      Not that many beer gardens in Berlin? That sounds unpleasant somehow.
      Although Rogacki sounds cool. Is the Fischmarkt like a deli selling fish or more like an open air shouting/throwing fish place? Where is it?

  13. cliff1976
    May 4, 2011 @ 8:04 am

    Two ways of serving here in Bavaria, where we call it “Leberkäse” (but there is neither “Leber” nor “Käse” in ours, and I pretty sure it’s not related to “Liverwurst,” either):

    • thick slices, served warm on a crusty roll (like in your graphic) with your choice of sweet or spicy mustard (I go with spicy)

    • thin slices, served chilled on a crusty roll, usually with thinly-sliced pickled cucumber and lettuce on it as well

    I have often wondered about the crusty parts of the “loaf” of meat — are they also just meat, baked to crispiness, or is there a bread-like coating on there? Either way, the butcher near my old office would discount a Leberkäse sandwich for me if all she had left were the ends of the loaf. Tasted just fine to me!

    • Andrew
      May 4, 2011 @ 9:46 pm

      You’re right. I only made the Liverwurst connection due to the name. I never ate it even in the US, so don’t know.

      I definitely only see it warm in thick slices here. They make the cold sandwiches with salami. As near as I can see in the butcher’s windows, yeah the crusty outside is just like the crust of bread. Same material just cooked crispy. I think the discount is that most people like the soft center and wouldn’t like the crunchy.
      BTW the Wikipedia article on Fleischkäse mentioned that idea of Brät as being the sausage ready meat. So back to the idea of Bratwurst, it seems far more likely a description of the meat than the cooking.

  14. Jeremy B
    May 4, 2011 @ 4:14 am

    I’ll be honest Andy. Before I even got to that last paragraph, I was thinking that Fleischkäse reminded me of Spam. That was going to be my comment on this but seems you addressed what I was already thinking when you wrote this. As for the square hot dog, would have loved to see a photo of that. I will close by saying this is probably the second wurst post I have seen from you! 🙂

    • Andrew
      May 4, 2011 @ 9:41 pm

      Haha.. the mind reading is getting better then. When my friend originally told me about having square hotdogs, I was thinking about the American style in plastic packaging that makes them kind of square instead of round like here. Hadn’t thought he meant big-square like a hamburger.

  15. Laura
    May 4, 2011 @ 1:32 am

    I did not have Meat Cheese while I was in Germany. I’m surprised they’ve never heard of Spam though…not that they’re missing out!

    • Andrew
      May 4, 2011 @ 9:39 pm

      Nope, no loss there without Spam.

  16. Gillian @OneGiantStep
    May 3, 2011 @ 11:47 pm

    My mother in law serves Fleischsalad at lunch time. It looks to me like tiny sticks of cut up hot dog in a mayonnaisy dressing with some crunchy bits in it. Tastes a bit like ‘hot dog salad’. Must be made of Fleischkaese. Cheers!

    • Andrew
      May 4, 2011 @ 9:39 pm

      Wurstsalat is what we call it here. Yup, cold tiny slices of Fleischkäse is indeed what it looks like. That I have tried before and can’t deal with it cold. Hmm crunchy bits? Veggies?

      • Sabrina
        May 4, 2011 @ 10:49 pm

        You guys crack me up 🙂 The “crunchy bits” are most likely pickles. Wurstsalat is usually made with Fleischwurst I think (similar, but not the same as Fleischkaese).

        • Andrew
          May 8, 2011 @ 5:36 pm

          Hmm.. so much to know about German meat products.

  17. Sabrina
    May 3, 2011 @ 10:28 pm

    Oh, and I forgot…. we don’t have SPAM in Germany. Now you have a sample of two 🙂

    And also I forgot to mention that it’s fairly difficult to find Fleischkaese north of Frankfurt. It’s more of a Southern thing.

  18. Sabrina
    May 3, 2011 @ 10:27 pm

    Yeah for the Fleischkaese 🙂 It does kind of taste like a high-quality hot dog. Delicious! And a great lunch if you pick it up fresh at a butcher’s shop. Yumm!

    • Andrew
      May 4, 2011 @ 9:37 pm

      We have a few butcher’s shops with street windows. They serve their own sausages and Fleischkäse to the passersby. I will have to remember to not turn my nose up at it anymore.