The BMW? the Mercedes-Benz? the pretzel? Lederhosen? the glue stick?
No. It just barely beat out the Christmas tree, but my favorite German invention is the mustard udder.
Imagine this: you are at your favorite fast food establishment, or maybe the ball park. You want to put ketchup on your fries (substitute mayo if you are a German or a Frenchie). There's either a pile of messy packets that are hard to open and squirt out onto embarrassing places (i.e. the crotch of your pants), or a big pump thing that is almost always empty.
What to do? German engineering has supplied us with the answer, inspired by nature. It's the udder. At sausage stands throughout Germany you will see something like this:
It takes up no counter space, needs no packaging, and is less likely to squirt onto your pants than any other dispenser. I imagine it's also easier than milking a cow.
Also notable packaging inventions are the toothpaste-sized tube of mustard and the very practical tube of tomato paste.
Like clean streets, safe drinking water, oodles of sick leave and cheap ice cream, Germans probably take the udder for granted. Whether it holds ketchup, mayo or mustard, it's one of those little signs of a higher quality of life. That, and pants free of mustard stains.
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