John Myers
Vienna sausages are a modification of Frankfurter sausages. Frankfurters are a bit softer and juicier to bite.
Despite the differences, the sausages have a common history: the Frankfurt sausage has been around since the Middle Ages, while the first Viennese sausage is said to have been sold in Vienna in 1805. Its inventor is Johann Georg Lahner, a butcher from Frankfurt. After his apprenticeship he went to Vienna and added beef to Frankfurter sausages, which was forbidden in Germany. At first, he sold them as Lahner sausages, later he called them “Frankfurter” – this name eventually caught on in Austria. In Germany, on the other hand, they are called Wiener Würstchen and today they also contain no beef.
The term “Frankfurter Würstchen” is protected. A court ruling from 1929 prevented butchers from marketing their product as Frankfurter sausages outside of the Frankfurt am Main economic area. This judgment was upheld by the Federal Court of Justice in 1955.
The Frankfurt sausage is a boiled sausage. The sausage casing is made from sheep intestine. Sheep intestines are very thin and tender and therefore suitable for consumption. An important feature is the golden yellow color. It is created during hot smoking in beech wood smoke. During preparation, the sausages are not boiled, but heated in hot water for around eight minutes. Both frankfurters and wieners are traditionally served in pairs.
Discover other Frankfurt recipes such as our herb soup!
On the other hand a wiener is a sausage in the viennese (wien) style. Wien is the Austrian way to refer to the city we call Vienna. I don’t know the difference in the contents of each and it is hard to learn that because people just keep parroting that Frankfurters and Wieners are the same thing. They are not. One is from Austria, the other from Germany. Americans have made both in an American style that matches neither of the original, making them of chicken and turkey. And in America they ARE the same thing. We ought to call them just hotdogs because that name is American.