German Food Station has been around for nearly 12 years, but I — a food writer by profession and a German through my mother — only heard of it this week.
I have driven to Deutsches Eck in Sierra Vista for Bratwurst; I regularly track down the Tucson food truck Haus of Brats; my family makes regular pilgrimages to German delis and bakeries in Phoenix and Carlsbad, California. Still, this truck eluded me.
German Food Station is a snowbird project, run by Andrea and Max Offermann. The couple hails from Heilbronn, Germany. This small city is in the Baden-Wurttemberg region, a prosperous and idiosyncratic, southern part of the country where corporations like Mercedes-Benz and Porsche are headquartered.
Their Currywurst is a reflection of the region. “We make it the Swabian way,” Andrea said.
Instead of dressing the sliced sausage thick with curry ketchup, the Bratwurst is covered in a thinner, spicier curry sauce before adding the requisite curry ketchup and powder. Instead of being served with fries, the dish comes with a Brötchen baked fresh in Green Valley.
Max makes the secret, special sauce, and Andrea recommends you eat the sauce by dipping a Stückchen (little piece) of bread into it.
Swabian Currywurst is made with a special sauce that's perfect for dipping with a little piece of bread.
I missed the truck because the couple is only in town as snowbirds, between the months of October and April. Their food truck most regularly pops up at the Dollar General parking lot kitty-corner from the Wagon Wheel Post in Picture Rocks, 6780 N. Sandario Road. They do, however, occasionally come closer into town. To find their weekly schedule, check their website on Monday mornings or follow them on Facebook.
Their menu is superficially similar to Haus of Brats. Because both food trucks represent southern German food, you’ll see a lot of variations of bratwurst and even find the German meatloaf Leberkäse. But each German butcher uses unique recipes and techniques to create their Wurst — different proportions or cuts of veal and pork, different textures depending on how finely ground the meat is, different spices, different casings — so the flavors of the sausages can vary greatly.
The Wurst at German Food Station is made in Phoenix by the German Sausage Co. The owner and lead butcher of the company is also from Baden-Wurttemberg, and his original Bratwurst recipe was slightly different from what Andrea and Max were looking for. They sent him their own recipe, and now he crafts their sausages with the Offermanns’ recipe.
There are a couple kinds of sausage that German Food Station offers that you can't find elsewhere in Tucson. The Deprecziner pork sausage is smoked and seasoned generously with paprika and is named after the second-largest city in Hungary, a country known for its affinity for the spice. You can also get white Bratwurst. Its casing splits while being cooked. To eat, you peel the casing off to reveal the especially tender white sausage inside.
The Bratwurst are finished off with a neat swirl of Thomy mustard, whose metal tubes are recognizable across Germany. The Offermanns bring extra back every year.
When I was leaving with my Wurst in hand, I noticed the next customer started speaking to Andrea in German, too. Their truck is a little capsule of the country that allows us to immerse ourselves in the language, food and culture of the place — if only for a lunch break. You’ll have until mid-April to experience it for yourself, before they return home for the summer.
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