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Have you ever had currywurst? You can find it at the Christkindlmarkt in Daley Plaza around the holidays; we've also seen it in at least one Polish restaurant on the northwest side, and you can buy curry-flavored brats at Paulina Meat Market. But it's certainly rare in these parts compared to Europe. Why is that? Food Detective David Hammond explores this question fresh from a currywurst-filled trip to Berlin and finds a fascinating story. We would have guessed that it came with immigration from spicier places, the way doner kebab came with Turkish guest workers (or chicken tikka came with Pakistanis to England), but in fact the answer is right out of a Fassbinder film from the 1980s. In the rubble of WWII, a woman named Herta Heuwer (played, in our imaginary movie, by Hanna Schygulla) trades booze to Allied soldiers for curry powder, and starts serving curry-sausages to the local red-light-district denizens (Barbara Sukowa, Ivan Desny).

In a blow to Chicago's sushi scene, which is wide but hardly deep, much-admired sushi chef B.K. Park apparently quit his restaurant Arami Monday. According to Eater, Park left "for personal reasons" and co-owner Ty Fujimara shut down the restaurant until July 10 to devise a new menu more focused on the cooked foods under chef de cuisine Ervin Guinto and sous chef Scott Malloy. The reality is that Arami has always offered two distinctly different experiences— cooked food and rolls in the dining room as a whole, and Park's skills with a knife at the sushi bar. And with the restaurant planning a carryout spot focused on rolls called Arami2Go, there may have been tension between the two visions of the business. (Though it should be noted that Fujimara did shut the restaurant down rather than proceed without a star sushi chef.) Without taking anything away from the skill and quality that Guinto and Malloy et al. have displayed in the kitchen, the ranks of roll-and-grill places are a lot thicker than the ranks of first rate sushi places in Chicago, and we hope Arami can continue to serve both markets at a high level. Meanwhile, wherever Park ends up likely jumps to being among the best Asian restaurants in town. We reached out to Fujimara for comment, but calls were not returned. [Eater]