When a German food manufacturer stopped producing this all-German staple five years ago, an era came to an end: the pea sausage. It contained a dried mixture of pea flour, bacon, onions and spices cooked in fat and pressed into intestinal tubes (later wrapped in paper). It was the mother of all instant soups, accompanying the nation for 150 years – in good times and in very bad.
The pea sausage was developed in 1867 by the Berlin chef and preserves manufacturer Johann Heinrich Grüneberg and quickly became a popular dish in countless households and the basis for many meals. It kept for a long time, didn’t need to be refrigerated, was easy to transport and even easier to prepare: put in cold water, stir, cook and you’re done!
Our columnist Beata Gontarczyk Krampe writes books, blogs (Kreuzberged“) and audio tours about the history of Berlin.
The Prussian army quickly discovered the pea sausage as food for the troops. Manufacturer Grünberg would have liked to seize the opportunity to sign a contract with the ministry immediately, but first his “Grünebergerin” had to have her “battlefield suitability” tested.
For this purpose, the army set up two Erbswurst commands, each consisting of an officer, a sergeant and 20 privates. For six weeks, the soldiers were fed nothing but pea sausage soup and black bread, with full physical exertion. The experiment was a success – the pea sausage not only earned Mr. Grüneberg fame, but also a lot of money: the Prussian state paid him a proud 35,000 thalers (today almost one million euros) for his patent.
The patent certificate: Heinrich Grüneberg had the concept and recipe protected. The document dates from 1870.
From then on, the Royal Prussian factory for army preserves in Kurfürstenstraße pressed almost 75,000 pea sausages a week, each of which could be used to cook three portions of soup. For this, the factory consumed over 25 tons of pea flour every day and sacrificed almost 100 oxen.
In a diary entry, Baroness Hildegard von Spitzemberg, a then well-known but otherwise not very entertaining Berlin author (“ate at the Bismarcks again today”), wrote that 80 animals were cut up and boned every day for this “sausage” in her slaughterhouse. Production soon had to be increased even further – to 65 tons of pea sausage per day.
Other armies got wind of the ready-made Berlin soup and also wanted to be supplied. Even France’s armed forces (with whom, thanks to Bismarck’s efforts, Prussia was soon at war again), armies in Great Britain and Russia also reported a need. Grüneberg’sche Erbswurst even traveled across the Atlantic and through the USA to San Francisco.
The production of the pea sausage was discontinued by the manufacturer Knorr at the end of 2018.
There as well as here, the pea sausage was also well received by the civilian population. Easy and quick to reheat, it provided a nutritious meal that fitted perfectly into working families. In 1889, Prussia sold the patent to the Knorr company in Heilbronn. It lived well off it for almost 130 years and only stopped production at the end of 2018 due to insufficient demand.
