You’ll often find Berlin-inspired food vendor, Get Wurst, popping up at events across the North. They bring audiences the best of Berlin, serving up proper currywurst and bratwrust dishes. We met with Get Wurst and asked them a few questions about their street food pop-up.
How did Get Wurst come about? What made you want to set up a mobile street food offering? We love visiting Berlin and spent many a time eating a currywurst on the streets of Berlin and loved it! You don't get it over here much except at a Christmas market when it often isn't done justice, so we wanted to do it and do it well! Both Lindsay and I have a big love of food and had worked on friends' food stalls in the past, and we were both bored of our office jobs and wanted a change! 5 years on we're pleased to be able to offer a good currywurst all year round and love popping up at events and festivals all over the UK. What influences your style of cooking? Like I said our love of currywurst came from many trips to Berlin, it is a traditional Berlin street food and we wanted to do it the Berlin way. There are disputes about whether currywurst originated in Berlin with some claiming it originates in Hamburg! We like to think we serve up an authentic Berlin style currywurst though have our own special recipe for the sauce with a few extra spices in the mix! What’s your signature dish? It has to be currywurst and fries. We serve up a meaty and a vegan version, it consists of rosemary salted fries topped with sliced bratwurst with our secret recipe currywurst sauce, served with a good helping of sauerkraut and some sweet pickles, also goes down very well with a nice beer! What’s the best meal you’ve ever had? I love proper American BBQ, dishes like ribs and brisket cooked low and slow. We've been to Texas a few times, though actually my favourite meal was at a BBQ place in New Orleans called The Joint. We pretty much had a bit of everything on the menu. What’s been your most challenging experience as a food vendor? Wind! Ask any trader and the weather will probably always come into it, we are at the mercy of British weather and have spent many a summer pitching up at an event or festival in the pouring rain. We often trade from a gazebo and wind is the absolute worst, it can make for a pretty hairy experience when you have gale force winds trying to pick your gazebo off the ground, though we now trade from our food truck which makes this so much better! Also, the current situation with Covid-19. All of our events got cancelled within the space of a few days and for us and all our fellow traders, event organisers and others working in hospitality this is unheard of and not a situation we ever imagined we would be in. But, to take a positive it has made everybody think about how we can survive and what we can do and lots of innovative ideas are coming out for how we can have events whilst maintaining social distancing and keeping safe. What do people not know about being a food vendor that they should know? It's very hard work! I think some people think we pitch up, serve people food for a few hours and go home and make loads of money! That is definitely not the case, the amount of hours that go in behind the scenes, prepping food, setting up and packing down the stalls and working in awful weather. I've worked more hours than I ever worked before in my previous jobs and a 15 hour day is not uncommon, but we're both much happier doing what we love to do now than we ever were in previous jobs. How are you ethical / how are you being more environmentally friendly in your practices? We have always worked to be as environmentally friendly as possible in all aspects of our work, from sourcing the highest quality high welfare sausages and produce to only ever using compostable packaging. It is good that the industry as a whole is very much the same way and most events won't let you trade unless you have a sustainability policy that covers all these things. What’s been your favourite Village Screen event to work on? We always love the Peak Cavern events, it's such an interesting spot to visit anyway, never mind to watch a film in a cave! It is always a really nice friendly crowd, we're just gutted we never actually get a chance to attend as a punter! What is your favourite film? Ha this probably not an answer anybody else would give, and I'm the kind of person that can never watch a film over and over again, but for me a film called Waking Ned. It's set in a small Irish village and is just a really feel good film that brings me lots of good memories of watching it with my Mum when I was younger. What is your favourite cinema snack / food? Pick and mix always. I'm a pick and mix fiend so will always get a massive one when going to the cinema!