Leberkäse: The Cheese Saga Continues

If you’re not yet convinced of the incredible gifts that cheese continues to offer us on a daily basis then you’ve not been introduced to the lovely leberkäse which when strictly translated means liver cheese. It’s more of a type of ham meets cheese for some sort of mischievous meatloaf type deal. The secret ingredients are corned beef, pork, bacon and onions and is prepared by grinding everything up and then baking it like a loaf in a bread pan until it has a crunchy brown crust. The reason that this is important is because it serves as further proof that the asymptote that is used to graph flavour is not in fact infinite and will eventually meet with the axis of culinary perfection. Whatever the dish may be, I can guarantee that cheese will be there.

It’s a simple warm sandwich and requires little effort to order. It is available at most bakeries and grocery stores in Austria. If you wish to order one of these tantalizing treats on a kaiser-like bun simply say “Leberkäse mit semmel, bitte”. They’ll undoubtedly recognize that you have a german language deficiency and help you by marking a common thickness on the loaf. Nod your head or ask for thicker and you’re on your way. The kind server will weigh it and prepare your sandwich “mit senf” (with mustard) if you fancy.

The sandwich is quite inexpensive averaging about 2€ per sandwich. Unfortunately, I do not have the nutritional information which is probably because there is none to speak of. In what it takes away from your body in terms of digestive no-goodery it makes up for in flavour. It’s one of the only “meats” that I know of that handles well enough on it’s own with bread which makes most other sandwiches seem high maintenance with all their necessary toppings like vegtables, ugh.