Despite working my butt off, I had some wonderful foodie experiences in Germany and Israel.
My first post back is about my first stop: Germany.
Food there can be surprising. Yes, there are a lot of heavy, fried foods. Yes, potatoes feature regularly. Yes, the serving sizes can compete with the Americans, but there’s a whole lot more to German cuisine than meets the eye, especially in their traditional, rustic style dishes.
Luckily for me I visited in spring and there was plenty of fresh asparagus on the menus, served in a myriad of ways, as well as delicious cherries (one of my favourite fruits).
I visited Frankfurt's Kleinmarkt as well as a farmer's market and took loads of photos of what I discovered there. The photos are up on my flickr collection: Global Markets.
Here’s some photos and rundowns of my German meals:
Boiled eggs served with delectable Grie Soß (green sauce), a Frankfurt speciality made of oil, vinegar and seven fresh herbs. Apple wine taverns throughout Frankfurt specialise in green sauce, each with their own heavily guarded recipe. Usually the seven herbs are an alternating combination of borage, sorrel, cress, chervil, chives, parsley, salad burnet, dill, lovage, spinach or basil.
Apfelwein or Äbbelwoi (apple wine) is another Frankfurt speciality. I once heard that the legend of äbbelwoi started after the region had a very poor grape harvest and had to resort to apples for their wine. They enjoyed the results so much that they never looked back. Äbbelwoi has a strange kind of sweet yet musty and sour flavour, which I prefer to drink pure. You can also have it süss (sweet – with lemon or orange soda) or sauer (sour – with mineral water, bringing on a cloudy effect and sour flavour). Äbbelwoi is served in a ceramic jug called a bembel, decorated in white and blue, and a diamond-patterned glass called a gerippte. The suburb of Sachsenhausen hosts the best äbbelwoi pubs, where guests sit at long wooden tables and benches eating hearty, delicious pub meals. I’ve eaten at th
The traditional Frankfurt frankfurters. The sausage is cooked by boiling and can be made from pork or a combination of pork and veal. In English speaking countries they are called frankfurts, frankfurters or wieners. I think it’s funny that in Germany they’re called Wiener (after Vienna) and in Austria they’re called Frankfurter, although both call the short ones Würstchen as well.
Tafelspitz is boiled beef, usually served with horseradish or green sauce (in this case green sauce). Note the deliciously crunchy potatoes that come with the meal. Cooking potatoes in various delightful ways is a skill most German kitchens excel at. And check out the soup bowl full of sauce - they never skimp on the sauce!
Asparagus season means fresh asparagus appearing on every menu in town. The farms are just outside the city so Frankfurt gets a good supply. White asparagus seems to be the popular choice, with long, large spears prevailing. In this dish, steamed spears were served with salt boiled potatoes, some parsley and a gravy boat full of Hollandaise sauce.
This dish was called Schupfnudeln mit Sauerkraut und Kasslerwürfel. Schupfnudeln are gnocchi-like potato-based pastas. In this case they were boiled then added to a pan of sauerkraut and pieces of fried smoked pork. It was absolutely beyond delicious.
Do you think they gave us enough crumbed fish?
How could I show photos of German food without a snapshot of an apple strudel?
Since it was asparagus season I ordered the soup at a nice restaurant we visited. I was so impressed that I hope to replicate it for dinner tonight. They used white asparagus to make a light yet creamy soup and had rosettes of saffron and white truffle infused mash potato hidden in the bowl. Divine.
This was a cherry streusel cake. At the markets we found a streusel shop selling nothing but huge slices of these delicious cheesecakes topped with spiced crumbs. You could get chocolate, apricot, peach, rhubarb, apple and anything else you desired. I went for cherry of course (hello, I’m in Central Europe, one of the best cherry destinations in the world).
Another really interesting discovery was elderflower bunches smothered in a sweet batter and then deep fried. They are then sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and eaten hot. It was really tasty and the flavour and freshness of the flowers really shone through. What a pleasant discovery!
I’ve decided that currywurst is great festival food. Cook a sausage, chop it into pieces then smother it in ketchup and serve in a small paper bowl. Happy days!
I thought it was worth showing you a photo of this elaborately presented dish. It tasted good, despite the fact that the sauce was made of capsicum, one of my most detested vegetables. My Australian vocab let me down since the English menu said “pepper sauce” and I assumed this meat pfeffer not paprika, since the German word paprika is capsicum in Australia. Sigh. But the photo gives you a taste of how much effort they put into the presentation. It was kitsch extravagance. Quite cute.
I’m going to have to get back to you all on what this is. I remember it’s a traditional sausage that’s served cold in this manner, like a sausage salad. I’ll check with Simone, who was with me during this meal, and get back to you. If anyone else knows what it is, feel free to make suggestions! Whatever it’s called, it tasted great.