I eat bratwurst, therefore I am. From Wisconsin, at
any rate. Bratwurst may look like a strange,
somewhat suspiciously oblong-shaped piece of meat to
most Americans, but to Wisconsinites, it's a badge of
identity. A badge that tastes delicious when eaten
with mustard and relish.
While it's easy to talk up America's diversity,
colorful regionalisms are on the wane. Accents are
less common these days, washed away by cable
TV's Iowa-bleached standard American English.
Families no longer spend three generations living in one
state; at this point, it's more typical for Americans
to live in three different states in one
generation.
Still, there are always little local quirks that tie a heritage together.
Rhode Island has coffee milk; Texas has its famous
barbecue and spicy, border-style executions; and Wisconsin has its
cheese, frozen custard, and, of course, its bratwurst.
The taste of bratwurst takes a while to get used to. Like Marmite, one of Britain's native
signifiers, not everybody takes to the spicy sausage immediately; nebbishy kosher franks or
boring hamburgers are more readily accessible and
considerably less challenging.
But once you're in the club (a nice euphemism for
having built up a tolerance and attained an
addiction), it's hard to beat a brat. Hard to beat the
taste of a brat, I mean. It's easy to beat one's own
metaphorical brat, if that's your thing.
And you're male.
To try again: Brats are delicious. They're the perfect accessory for
summer, sliding sizzling off a grill, their spiced greasiness making a robust
companion to the bun's hearty blandness, the whole
thing crying out for the nice crisp taste of a lager
to wash it all down. Once you're on the brat wagon,
it's difficult to get off, and you're appalled to meet
meat eaters who haven't yet gone ga-ga for the
taste.
You also feel obligated to correct total strangers who
insist, for whatever reason, in calling a brat
(pronounced "braht") a "brat."
And if you're from Wisconsin, you're able to summon up
home in a single bite, wherever you might be. With
just a bit of bratwurst, you're suddenly back in the
Midwest, where the summers are hot, the winters are
cold, and everyone's basically pretty relaxed.
Assuming the locals are stocking their Johnsonvilles,
of course. Otherwise it's another bowl of clam chowdah
and an online search for cheap plane tickets.
E-mail James Norton at jim@flakmag.com.
— graphic by Alison Paddock (arpdesigns@hotmail.com)
(Can't) Beat the Brat