gather around for the same delicious snack. Now, it also has official approval of authenticity as being part of Austria’s heritage.

The humble “Würstelstand” culture became the newest entry to the national intangible cultural heritage list this week, as supervised by the Austrian UNESCO Commission.

The Würstelstand, now able to refer to centuries of history, is more than a greasy gastronomic delight.

The street stand is a place where many classes and kinds of people congregate and even has its own special vocabulary.

Say hello to the “Haasse,” a coarsely boiled sausage, and also to the “Kasekrainer” – a smoked masterpiece filled with cheese that drips out, also referred to at times as the “Eitrige,” or “suppurating” sausage. And there is the “Oaschpfeiferl,” a spicy pepperoni, and the “Krokodü,” a gherkin. Sausage stands have had a long tradition in Vienna,

“Initially, it was only a bucket with hot water where the sausages would swim,” he said. They were hawked from “small dog-drawn carriages and larger horse-drawn ones, later a VW bus or a tractor to their location.

The practice dates to the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s pre-World War I era when veterans established roving cookshops as a way of earning money. The oldest of Vienna’s stationary stalls, Würstelstand Leo, has been dishing up sausages since 1928. The stalls became more of an institution after broader authorization for stationary stalls was issued in 1969.

That was when the griddle was brought in and the cheesy Käsekrainer created, Bitzinger continued. “Today, that’s already a classic.”

The UNESCO tag “celebrates the tradition, the hospitality and the diversity of our city,” Mayor Michael Ludwig said in a release.

“This title is a recognition for all those Viennese who, with their warmth and their charm, make the sausage stands more than just a snack place – a meeting place where joie de vivre and culture come together.”

Bitzinger said, “We have been fighting a long time for this.”

“The unique thing about it is that it’s a kind of gastronomy everyone can afford,” he said. “Here, the general director and, at the opera ball, a celebrity stand next to a worker and the street sweeper who just cleaned the street. That brings people together.