The Nuremberg Roast Sausage (Nürnberger Rostbratwürstchen)

Although Nuremberg is a town rich in history, many in Germany associate it with this small sausage, which is served ideally with Sauerkraut and a potato salad. Only as long as your forefinger, and weighing around 23 gms, the sausage is made from pork seasoned with marjoram and grilled over beechwood charcoal.

North Bavarians don’t just fry them or stick three sausages in a bread roll as a snack (called Drei im Weckla), they also like to simmer them for ten minutes in a vinegar stock consisting of half-a-litre of boiling water, to which has been added two tablespoons of vinegar, a slug of wine, two tablespoons of sugar, half-a-tablespoon of salt, three mid-sized onions cut into rings, a few juniper berries and two bay leafs.

They are then served as Blaue Zipfel (literally, “blue end”), or Sauer Bratwürste. This is because, after being cooked for 15 minutes, the sausages turn blue. Mop up the juices with German farmhouse bread.

These Bratwürstchen are made by a group of 150 butchers in Nuremberg, the biggest and most famous, with an annual turnover of £21m, belonging to the former German footballer Uli Hoeness (below), a member of Germany’s winning World Cup team in 1974 and now manager of German champions Bayern Munich.