I met these words on one page(225) in my dictionary and felt a need to write
something about them as they all sound exotically delicious.
The first two are names of sausages. "bratwurst" refers to a pork(brat)
sausage(wurst), and "Braunschweiger" is liver sausage derived from the name of a
place Braunschweiger(Brunswick). The third word, brawn, has the sense of
headcheese, anmial head meats in aspic. In northern China, we have
different ways of eating pigs' heads (We usually boil and eat them with sauce.) and
only use pork skin in aspic. As for sausages, I never heard of pork liver fillings.
A good thing that I tried to explore a German meat shop, Dittmer's, a few years
back. Overwhelmed by the large variety of unfamiliar meat products there, I did
not go back.
Today, I looked up their catalog and found all three foods there. We have broken
the ice and they are not strangers anymore. And there are many other foods, most
of them of European origin, to be aquainted with. The store is a treasure trove
for culture and I cannot wait to visit. I need to hurry since it's a small
business, in case it's gone like its former neighbor Milk Pail.
Learning words are constantly revealing new worlds to me. How exciting!
