In the vein of “when in Austria” … I could not, of course, pass up the “wurst” stand across the street from the train station, here in Lienz.

Nothing says “central European eating” quite like a plump and piping-hot tube of mystery meat.

Of the sort you find at Stoana’s Wurstlstandl. And if my German was up to snuff, that is Stoana herself, above, who was a very good sport about showing the tourist with the camera one of her wursts just as it was going into the pot.

“Wurst” is basically the German for sausage, and sausage is the gold standard for mystery meat. “Like seeing sausage made” is a very apt expression.

Check this sentence from the wiki entry:

“Sausage is a logical outcome of efficient butchery. Traditionally, sausage-makers put tissues and organs such as scraps, organ meats, blood and fat in a form that allows for preservation: Typically, salted and stuffed into a tubular casing made from the cleaned intestine of the animal, producing the characteristic cylindrical shape.”

Ohh-kay. Basically, no, you don’t want to know.

As you can see in the photo below, Stoana offers a fairly wide variety of wurst. And you thought it was all the same, right? (Well, so did I, and I’m not sure I actually can tell the difference, unless maybe curry is involved, yes.)

I ordered the Hauswurst — the house wurst, presumably their specialty. For 3.10 euro, or about $4.

That seems expensive, but it really is pretty much a meal all by itself. And the Dodgers are charging at least that much for a Dodger Dog, right?

The wurst was cut in half and placed on a paper plate, and came with a fairly large but flat and dense circle of bread with sesame seeds. And a dab of mustard.

The trick was to maneuver the tubes of meat between the sliced bread, and get some mustard involved … without losing the whole thing. On the ground or on my shirt. I pulled it off, but only just; some close calls.

To have this sort of giant hot dog brings home what sad things the typical store-bought dogs are back in the U.S.  This thing was moist and dense and didn’t taste cardboardy. I’m not sure I would eat it every day — OK, no I absolutely wouldn’t — but if you feel like some pork bits packed in an intestine, well, this is the place to go.

Stoana seems to do a brisk business, operating out of what looks like a shack. Lienz is not big on fast food, which may be why everyone looks so healthy, and this is about as fast as it is going to get — aside from the McDonald’s (alas) on the main road, which is always crowded. Micky D’s, that is; the main road is crowded only at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Stoana’s place has a sort of silly name, but in the States it might have been called something like “The Wurst That Can Happen” or “It Could Be Wurst.” Though, now that I think of it, leaving open what, exactly, is in your wurst probably is not a good idea.

Back to the “don’t want to know” thing.

But if it’s good enough for 100 million central Europeans … well, it was pretty good.