The English language has a fair few food-related expressions. When something is easy, for example, it might be described as “a piece of cake”, and when something isn’t for you, it’s “not my cup of tea”.

These expressions only really make sense in British culture, given the long history of afternoon tea as the quintessential staple of Britishness. Well, just as the British expressions centre around tea and cake, so the German expressions centre around – you guessed it – beer and sausages.

Die beleidigte Leberwurst is one such expression, translating literally to “the offended liver sausage”.

Idiomatically, calling someone a beleidigte Leberwurst indicates that they are a sore loser, or that they’re behaving in a bad-tempered way because they’ve been insulted. It’s not a very fair term, since it implies that the person is sulking unnecessarily over a perceived offence.

In Upper Saxony, the origin of this phrase is explained in a story about a butcher boiling some sausages in a pot. After a few minutes, the butcher removes the sausages that have finished cooking, leaving behind only the liver sausage, which is still slightly raw. Now all alone, and greatly offended by this exclusion, the liver sausage bursts its skin in rage.

Whether or not this is the true origin of the phrase, Germans have been describing each other in relation to livers since the Middle Ages, when it was believed that the liver was the source of our emotions, in particular anger.

In an ARD radio broadcast earlier this year Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach appealed to the heads of the federal states not to play the beleidigte Leberwurst when it comes to Covid restrictions, asking the federal states to remember their responsibility to introduce Covid hotspot restrictions if and
when they become necessary.

And the expression was once again used in a prominent way in May 2022. The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz of “playing the Beleidigte Leberwurst (being in a huff)” for saying ‘no’ to a state visit to Kyiv due to the cancellation of President Frank Walter Steinmeier’s trip.

The phrase die beleidigte Leberwurst spielen, is a common way of using the expression. It means “to play the offended liver sausage”, or in other words to play the sore loser.

READ ALSO: Ukraine ambassador accuses Scholz of ‘going in a huff’ over Kyiv trip

Examples:

„Jetzt darf niemand, ich sag mal, die beleidigte Leberwurst spielen …”

“Now no one is allowed to, shall I say, go in the huff …”

Sei nicht so’ne beleidigte Leberwurst!

Don’t be such a sore loser!