Like carrying coals to Newcastle, taking british sausages back to Germany, the land of the Wurst is an unlikely concept. But this is exactly what Uli Offerman from Westphalia is now doing since he discovered the delights of the sausages and bacon created by longstanding Marlborough family butchers, Sumblers.
Seventy year old Uli only visited the UK for the first time barely three years ago, and to Marlborough much more recently since his step daughter and her husband only moved to the area within the past year. So the ‘English Breakfast’ was an undiscovered delight, until the introduction to the Sumblers’ version with Marlborough’s locally produced sausages and bacon came as a revelation, so much so that for the second time he will be filling up the chill box for the drive home, taking a sizeable consignment back to Germany to create proper ‘Englisches Frühstück’ for his family there.
Whilst being a country where meat dominates the menu and butchers are possibly the most prolific category of retail in a typical German town centre, bacon and ‘english style’ sausages don’t figure. Or haven’t until recently in the area of Westphalia near to the Eiffel Mountains. But now Uli will be doing his bit, irrespective of what happens with Brexit over the next few months to make sure that the traditional British breakfast has a thriving and welcome foothold on the German breakfast table.
Steve Frost from Sumblers commented: “It’s always great to see new customers and we’re delighted to be exporting our homemade sausages and local bacon to Germany. This is Uli’s second visit to us for a family bulk-buy … it seems his extended family are becoming fans of the great British breakfast!”
Uli, lost for a suitable English comment kept safe with: “Meine familie sind schon fuer den naechsten originalen englischen Fruestueck eingeladen. Dann wissen die, dass die Wurstchen und Speck aus der besten Meztgerei von Marlborough kommen.” Which, according to Google Translate comes up as: “My family are already invited for the next original English breakfast. We know that the sausage and bacon come from the best butchers in Marlborough!”
What the next few months will bring is anyone’s guess other than a few more consignments of Sumblers’ sausages and bacon being transported to Germany. But whilst UK may be unhitching from the European neighbours there will be one area of the EU where a bit of British culinary culture is eagerly devoured, with Uli championing Sumblers’ fare and keeping one bit of the relationship still very intact and flourishing.