Not that many years ago. Well it was before the advent of the internet being available on a cell phone or perhaps the internet was not available at all. My guess is that this memory is from the mid 1990′s.
I was being driven across the German countryside by a good friend named Klaus Wenske. Klaus knows that I like German sausage, and many times he would introduce me to a new wurst. Germany has the best wurst. That day it was Bockwurst. We stopped for lunch at a roadside diner and enjoyed some Bockwurst on a bun with mustard. It was great lunch which included a Bock Beer. I asked Klaus if Bock Beer and Bockwurst had the same origins. He was not sure. He explained that the Bock Beer got its name from the male deer with antlers on the bottle (we say Buck and they say Bock).
He tried several times to come up with plausible explanations for Bockwurst but none was completely believable as he told them without conviction. I guess I chided him a little too much because in a fit of frustration he looked at me and said “I don’t know where the name Bockwurst comes from. Where does the word ‘marshmallow’ come from?” This was a great question as I had no idea. Not to be outdone I grabbed his cell phone and called Peter Reinhard a friend of mine in the USA who knows everything. I was surprised when the question of the origin of the word marshmallow stumped Peter. At home Peter has a great collection of dictionaries and he phoned Margrit, his wife, who looked it up. Now I was prepared! I learned that it is “a confection of sweetened paste, formerly made from the root of the marshmallow plant.” and also learned that it is “a perennial plant (Althaea officinalis) native to Europe and naturalized in marshes of eastern North America, having showy pink flowers and a mucilaginous root occasionally used in confectionery”.
I shared this deep knowledge of the “root” of the word marshmallow with Klaus and asked the question again, “Where does the name Bockwurst come from?”
Klaus still has not told me!
Ok, here you go:
“Bockwurst” has nothing to do with the male deer, called “Bock” in German. Bockwurst is called like that, because this “Wurst” was accompanied by “Bockbier”, a very strong type of beer, which was first brewed in the northern German Town of “Einbeck”. The bavarian Kings liked the northern German beer from the town of Einbeck very much, so the master brewer from Einbeck was asked to do his magic at some of the bavarian castles (around 1550) and he brought of course his beer with him. He called it “Ainpöckisch” beer, which means something like “beer from Einbeck”. The bavarian dialekt formed this word “Ainpöckisch” over the decades to “Bock”, so “Bock” is referring to beer, that originated around the 1500s in the town of Einbeck.
That’s it
Hi Michael,
Your answer disagrees a little with that now found in Wikipedia as the Wikipedia says “Bockwurst is a kind of German sausage invented in 1889 by restaurant owner R. Scholtz of Berlin.”
Your answer does agree with an email I received from Jeannette Jacobs of Meica in Germany saying “Legend has it that the bockwurst originated in Einbeck, Lower Saxony, because the famous local “Ainpockisch Beer“ was often served with a tender, juicy boiled sausage – a bockwurst! Meica’s Bockwurst is available in a natural casing that has a nice bite to it. Meica’s Saftbockwurst, on the other hand, comes without casing – skinless.”
I’m guessing that your research is coming close to the facts. Well done!
Found an interesting read at http://jewlib.www.jewlib.freebase.com/view/en/bockwurst where it says “Bockwurst is a kind of German sausage invented in 1889 by restaurant owner R. Scholtz of Berlin. It is one of the most popular varieties within Germany, and can be found abroad. The sausage is traditionally made from ground veal and pork (tending more towards veal, unlike bratwurst). In modern Germany, however, it is made from different types of ground meat, such as pork, lamb, turkey, chicken and in rare cases even from horse meat. In Northern Germany there is also a version of bockwurst which is made from fish. Bockwurst is flavored with salt, white pepper and paprika. Other spices, such as chives and parsley, are often also added and in Germany itself bockwurst is often smoked as well. Bockwurst was originally eaten with bock beer and it is usually served with mustard. A natural casing sausage, it is usually cooked by simmering although it may also be grilled”