German sausage is “Wurst” and cheese is “Käse,” prompting the pun that a pairing of the two is a “Wurst-Käse scenario” (worst-case scenario). “Wurst-case Scenario” was a headline in the Los Angeles (CA) Times in 1985. “Wurst Käse scenario” was cited in a newsgroup in 2002.
A joke was made on reddit on March 1, 2016:
Q: Why do Germans fear hotdos with cheese?
A: Because for them, it is a Wurst-Käse scenario.
Los Angeles (CA) Times
Up From A Wurst-case Scenario
July 07, 1985 | BILL STERN
BERLIN — It is still possible to visit Germany and return home believing that German cooking consists of little more than sauerbraten, sauerkraut, schnitzels, wursts and boiled potatoes served in kitschy surroundings. However, Berlin’s bourgeois Hecker’s Deele and plush Zum Hugenotten showed me that German cooking is far more varied and sometimes even lighter than we usually think it is.
Google Books
3 February 1986, New York magazine, pg. 49, col. 2 photo caption:
WURST-CASE SCENARIO: The sausage counter at Schaller and Weber.
Google Groups: alt.folklore.urban
what are faggots?
Lee Rudolph
4/20/94
In <766787…@kirk.demon.co.uk> .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Ewan Kirk) writes:
>> Just to complete the picture, first job every morning was unravelling
>> sheeps intestines to use for sausage skins.
>That must have been some time ago because I was sure that
>almost all sausage skins were artificial now.
Now that AIDS awareness has (I assume) essentially destroyed the market for NaturaLamb condoms, and Ewan tells us that the wurst-case scenario doesn’t use sheepgut either anymore, what the heck is being done with them all?
Google Groups: alt.humor.puns
The Gift
Scot Nelson
3/4/99
On Wed, 03 Mar 1999 17:56:49 -0800, Stan Kegel
wrote:
>
> A German farmer with relatives in the U. S. sent them a package
>consisting of some pork sausages made from his old pig. When they
>complained that the package had not yet arrived, he wrote: . . .
>“Cheer up. The wurst is yet to come.”
To be frank, it boils me to see a bunch of brats complain about a wurst-case scenario. Gutless swine!
OCLC WorldCat record
Wurst case scenario
Author: Catherine Clark
Publisher: New York : HarperTempest, 2001.
Edition/Format: Print book : Fiction : Juvenile audience : English : 1st HarperTempest ed
Database: WorldCat
Summary:
Courtney, a vegetarian animal-rights activist, records in her diary the events of the beginning of her freshman year at a Wisconsin college, far away from Colorado and her boyfriend Grant, surrounded by cheese- and meat-lovers.
Google Groups: alt.penpals.forty-plus-yrs
A picture for Eva
Cybe R. Wizard
10/17/02
(...)
I’ll admit that, to me, it /looked/ like a wurst Käse scenario.
Twitter
Björn Schulze
@ghostdog19
Wurst Käse Scenario.
3:34 PM - 22 May 2009
OCLC WorldCat record
Wurst Case Scenario Axel Schafer is a third-generation butcher in the world sausage capital. On one hand, he rules the declining appetite for artisan meats. On the other he’s a vegetarian
Author: A D Blechman
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: SMITHSONIAN, 40, no. 10, (2010): 72-86
Database: British Library Serials
Twitter
Michael Zunenshine
@normalmachine
“German lunch is a Wurst Käse Scenario.” (A friend came up with that one.)
4:01 PM - 10 Jun 2010
Twitter
Michelle McLaren
@booktothefuture
I only know two words in German - the word for “sausage” and the word for “cheese”. It’s a wurst kase scenario.
2:16 AM - 21 Jul 2013
Google Books
Second Thoughts from a Grumpy Innovator
By Costas Papaikonomou
GrumpyInnovator.com
2015
Pg. ?:
AS THE GERMANS SAY, A “WURST KÄSE” SCENARIO
reddit
Why do Germans fear hotdogs with cheese? (self.Jokes)
submitted March 1, 2016 by crumpledlinensuit
Because for them, it is a Wurst-Käse scenario.