Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [54]
Sweets
DRINKS
Beer
Wine
WHERE TO EAT & DRINK
Quick Eats
VEGETARIANS & VEGANS
EATING WITH KIDS
HABITS & CUSTOMS
EAT YOUR WORDS
Food Glossary
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Unlike France or Italy, Germany has never been a culinary destination. In the international imagination, its food is often just something – usually a wurst (sausage) – to accompany its superlative beer. Relying heavily on meat, cabbage and potato, the country’s traditional cuisine has a not entirely undeserved reputation as hearty but dull. As one old saying cruelly has it, the problem with German food is that a week later you want some more!
However, Germany has been redeeming itself gastronomically in the past decade in much the same way as has happened in Britain. Top chefs have been experimenting with time-honoured dishes in a wave that’s referred to as the Neue Deutsche Küche (New German Cuisine), and multi-kulti (multicultural) influences – ranging from Turkish to Mediterranean to Asian – have put baba ganoush, burritos and curries on menus and pesto, coconut milk and coriander on supermarket shelves.
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The modern doner kebab (Dönerkebab) doesn’t emanate from Turkey, but Germany. In 1971, Turkish immigrants running the Berlin restaurant Hasir introduced salad into an ancient Turkish dish; even outlets in Turkey have been making it this way ever since.
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As a rule, you still won’t find the love of excellent food – and the ability to produce it – permeating every corner of every neighbourhood restaurant as you will in, say, Italy. But you will find exceptions to this in urban centres like Berlin and Hamburg, and the global trend to source local, seasonal ingredients is gaining strength here, too. The Imbiss fast-food stall, however, is a ubiquitous phenomenon, allowing you to eat on the run easily and, if you choose your restaurants with just a little care, it is possible to treat your palate at the same time.
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STAPLES & SPECIALITIES
Wurst, Brot, Kartoffeln and sauerkraut (sausage, bread, potatoes and cabbage): yes, sometimes all the national stereotypes ring true. In Germany you’ll certainly find things like Kalbshaxe (knuckle of veal) and Sauerbraten (roast beef marinated in wine and vinegar), but were you aware that Quark, a yoghurt-like curd cheese, accounts for 50% of domestic cheese consumption? Or, did you realise that locals are equally devoted to asparagus, mushrooms, pumpkin and venison?
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Indisputably the handbook of German cuisine since it was published in the 1960s, Dr Oetker’s German Cooking: The Original was handily re-released in 2003, filling you in on all the basic techniques and classic dishes
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Sausage
In the Middle Ages, German peasants found a way to package and disguise animals’ less appetising bits, and the wurst (sausage) was born. Today, it’s a noble and highly respected element of German cuisine, with strict rules determining the authenticity of wurst varieties. In some cases, as with the finger-sized Nuremberg sausage, regulations even ensure offal no longer enters the equation.
There are more than 1500 sausage species, all commonly served with bread and a sweet (süss) or spicy (scharf) mustard (Senf).
Bratwurst, served countrywide, is made from minced pork, veal and spices, and is cooked in different ways (boiled in beer, baked with apples and cabbage, stewed in a casserole or simply grilled or barbecued).
The availability of other sausages differs regionally. A Thüringer is long, thin and spiced, while a Wiener is what hot-dog fiends call a frankfurter. Blutwurst is blood sausage (not to be confused with black pudding, which is Rotwurst), Leberwurst is liver sausage, and Knackwurst is lightly tickled with garlic.
Saxony has brain sausage (Bregenwurst), Bavaria sells white rubbery Weisswurst, made from veal, and Berlin boasts the Currywurst (slices of sausage topped with curry powder and ketchup).
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Find the top restaurants in Germany – and in major international cities – at www.restaurant-ranglisten.de