Screen capture from the Wursttoaster website at http://www.wursttoaster.de/index.html.

We learn from Reuters tonight that two German entreprenuers have won a prize from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology for their Wursttoaster, which they tell us delivers perfectly toasted bratwursts.  To see the Wursttoaster in action, watch the delightful video at this link, where the poll question next to the video translates from German as “Would you stick your bratwurst in a toaster?”  As of this writing, “yes” is leading “no”, by about 89 percent to 11 percent.

Why toast bratwursts?  The Reuters story tells us:

Marco Bruns, 25, said he and his business partner Felix Rennies, 28, came up with the idea after being less than impressed with English efforts to pull off the popular German snack on one of their frequent trips to Britain.

“We went to a market where there was German Bratwurst but we discovered the English don’t have a clue how to cook them — they were completely brown on one side and completely white on the other side,” he told Reuters.

But inventing the perfect bratwurst toaster was not enough. They then went all in (so to speak) and invented the perfect bratwurst:

The entrepreneurial duo are now working on their own brand of sausages — the so-called “Smartwurst” or smart sausage — which is designed to give optimal results when used with the Wursttoaster.

I don’t know about you, but I find the concept of a smart sausage pretty frightening.

I realize that the target market here is small convenience stores where the perfect brats will toast up perfectly and quickly, but a dedicated machine for this sounds as ridiculous as the M’Sieur Crepe we got as a wedding present in 1979.

Oh, and about the photo in the screen capture from the Wursttoaster website: I don’t think that leg is toasted yet.