Just like beer or bread makers in Germany, you need to have the national qualification “Meister” to run a butcher shop. First, you obtain a qualification called the Geselle, by building up experience under a Meister for 3 to 3 and a half years. Before becoming a Meister, you must not only acquire additional specialist skills, but also learn the ins and outs of butchery from more wide-ranging perspectives, including business, education, and development skills, then finally acquire your Meister qualification as a fully-fledged “meat processor and dealer”.
The German word for meat is Fleisch, which gives the word for the occupation of butcher, Fleischer (or Metzger). And to get the word for butcher shop, you just add “-ei” to the end, so Fleischerei (or Metzgerei).

Frühstück (Breakfast) and Abendbrot (Dinner)
The long-standing custom in Germany is to have a hot meal only once a day, with two cold meals, in the morning and evening.
In other words, in the morning and evening most people have a cold meal of cereal, yogurt, and bread with sliced sausage and cheese, and if they have one hot meal at lunch, such as a stew and potatoes, that is plenty. When you cook a hot meal, you dirty the pots and cooker, which means more cleaning work, so you could say that from the housewife’s point of view it is very reasonable.



If you don’t know what sort of sliced sausage you’re going to get at the butcher shop before you get there, you can use this handy expression “Zwei-hundert Gramm Aufschitt, bitte” and the butcher will put together their own 200g assortment of sliced sausage for you including 3 or 4 slices each of Schinkenwurst (ham sausage), Bierschinken (ham sausage), Zungenwurst (“blood tongue”), and so on.



Schinkenwurst for the Children
Butchers hand you a thin slice of Schinkenwurst sausage for your small child. It has a mild flavor, and it’s quite palatable to children, so they love it. If you have bought a lot of sausage, you can thinly slice it and dress it with pickles and mayonnaise to make Fleischsalat. It’s nice on bread but you can also quickly whip up a potato salad by boiling some potato and mixing it in.

“Bratwurst”
Fried or roast sausage is called “Brat (fry or roast) wurst (sausage)”.
Putting some mild mustard on it and having it with bread or potato salad makes for a substantial main meal, so you can’t do without it at a barbecue.



If you go to a street stall, try a Currywurst
If you go to a stall at a festival or the like, you’ll want to try Currywurst.
The ketchup-based curry flavor goes very well with fried sausage.
You eat it with bread, or with fries called “Pommes.” Adding some mayonnaise to that makes it really delicious, but it gives it an extra calorie boost, so lately I have been trying to avoid them.



Fleischkäse (Leberkäse)
Fleischkäse, also called Leberkäse, is German-style meatloaf.
Leberkässemmel, Leberkäse in a bread bun, is one of the top fast foods in Bavaria and Austria. Adding a fried egg on top makes a perfect match, so having it with some potato salad or fried potato and black bread makes an excellent dish.



Leberwurst
Leberwurst (liverwurst), pork and veal liver with spices, goes best with bread. You have various choices, including Grob (coarsely ground), Fein (finely ground), smoked, and so on.
The gray-colored Pfälzerleberwurst contains herbs, so it doesn’t have a strong smell and is particularly palatable, so it’s my top recommendation.

There are about 1,500 different types of sausage available in Germany where annual sausage consumption per head of population is approximately 30kg: it is an indispensable part of everyday life in Germany.
The German sausages made by Meisters are exceptionally tasty, but they contain a lot of fat and salt, so I’m going to keep in mind my health and waistline and enjoy sausage in moderation with other foods.

Proverb
Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei.
Everything has an end, but sausages have two.