The Central Style: Rich and Filling

Ham, pumpernickel and beer well represent the earthbound qualities of Westphalia, where almost everyone, from western mining district of the Ruhr to the northern and eastern farmlands, live by the products of the soil.  Close to the soil, too, is Westphalian architecture- in the medieval and Renaissance buildings of towns like Borken or Bocholt, the Romanesque cathedrals of Mu?nster and Paderborn, the moated castles of Rauschenburg and Rauschhais, all far more massive than corresponding buildings in other parts of Germany.  Thick and massive, too, is the local dialect, almost unintelligible to outsiders.  It is a dialect that finds its natural setting in the endless fields of rye, sugar beets, cabbage and turnips that make up the Westphalian countryside, and in the houses- small-windowed, shutterless, seldom softened by flowers- of Westphalian towns.

Pumpernickel, the coarse dark bread made from unsifted rye flour, is a bread that cries out for butter and cold cuts and cheese.  It is a bread that gives strength to the eater, but only when it is made with pure rye flour, without the addition of sugar-beer syrup.  Good pumpernickel must leaven for 24 hours, then baked slowly for an equal length of time, so that the natural sugar in the rye flour will darken and sweeten the bread evenly.  

Westphalian ham, traditionally made from pigs fed on the acorns of Westphalia’s great oak forest, is lightly smoked and as savory as any prosciutto from Italy or jambon from France.  The proper way of preparing Westfa?lische Schinkenplatte, or ham platter, is to line a deep wooden plate with fresh lettuce leaves.  Slices of cooked smoked ham rest on the lettuce; an even more abundant platter will also contain Paprikaspeck- smoked bacon, rosy with paprika- a few small, hard smoked sausages and golden butterballs.  Along with the pumpernickel there ought to be a nip of Steinha?ger, a fragrant Schnaps flavored with juniper berries, or a stein of the dark Westphalian beer made in Dortmund, home of the largest of all German breweries.  

The pig has always reigned supreme in Westphalia.  Along the flat country roads of the region, there are many country Gastho?fe, most of which are owned by local pork butchers.  In one of these inns near Paderborn there is a small army of pigs penned up in the back, waiting to be transformed into the heavy, succulent, well-seasoned dished that Westphalians love.  Many of those pork casseroles call for a stamina not given to all of us, but some are excellent in their sustaining way, especially when they are cooked with kale or broad beans.  Broad beans, in fact, have found their bard in Westphalia, an anonymous poet who sang in the local dialect: “O hillige Graute-Baunen Tid, O Buk, wa?rd mi noch mal so wit!”- “Oh holy broad-bean time, oh stomach of mine, be twice as big!”  Bean  soup flavored with savory (the herb that flavors many German bean dishes); broad beans with bacon; kale with Mettwurst (smoked pork sausage) and bacon; kale with Schinkenphanne, a thick pancake filled with potatoes and ham; and Blindhuhn, a casserole of beans, potatoes, carrots, onions, and apples cooked with bacon- these are traditional pleasured that can still be enjoyed. 

A Westphalian dish with a wider reputation is the famed Pannhas, a product of the autumnal Schlachfest, or pig slaughter.  A thick preparation of buckwheat flour cooked to a well-seasoned mush in the savory broth in which sausages have been simmered, Pannhas may be eaten hot and fresh or kept cold to be fried when needed.  It is the father of our own Pennsylvania scrapple.  Many of the Pennsylvania Dutch came to America from Westphalia; in the New World they made a sort of ersatz Pannhas, using native cornmeal in place of European buckwheat.  

Pfefferpotthast, another old Westphalian favorite, originated in Dortmund.  It is essentially a well-seasoned stew of beef short ribs, cooked with chopped onions, knob celery and carrots browned in bacon and served with potatoes.  (To offset this heavy entrée, a side dish of beet salad may be added in winter, or a mixed salad of tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce in the summer.)  The secret of the dish resides in the number of sauce-thickening onions, in the proportions of slice lemons, capers, cloves and bay leaf for flavoring, and in the ungodly amount of ground pepper that makes the dish hot.  The last ingredient is crucial; Pfefferpotthast is the dish of choice for the banquets of Westphalian men’s clubs, card players, bowlers and hunting groups because, as they say, “It makes a good thirst.” 

A more delicate dish, which may have originated in a patrician’s town house rather than a country kitchen, is Mu?nsterla?nder To?ttchen, a ragoût fin with onions, capers, a dash of vinegar and sherry or Madeira.  But even the To?ttchen has taken on a rural quality; it is customarily served with country bread and parsleyed potatoes and, like Pfefferpotthast, it should be on the peppery side, if only to justify the solace of a beer or a glass or two of the powerful Schnaps called Mu?nsterla?nder Korn. 

In addition to their pumpernickel, Westphalians have always baked  variety of interesting breads and pastries.  Pickert, a bread made with wheat or potato flour and raised with yeast, is a gem of German peasant food, and so is Appeltate, a baked dessert of apples, raisins, and almonds topped with an egg-and-cream batter.  More ambitious is der Westfa?lische pudding, a pudding made with pumpernickel crumbs, eggs, sugar, grated chocolate, a dash o Schnaps, grated lemon rind, cinnamon, grated almonds, and a handful of raisins.  This complex dish may sound weird, but it is excellent, especially with a side dish of vanilla sauce or one of apples or cranberries.  And there are Korinthenstuten, wheat breads made with eggs and milk dotted with raisins.  Om St. Nicholas Day, the same bread takes the form of a Stutenkerl- a man with raisin eyes and raisin buttons, who keeps his hands in his pockets and dangles a long white clay pipe from his mouth.  

Frankfurt, the chief cit of Hesse, is famous as the birthplace of Goethe, and of such humbler products as Frankfurter Wu?rstchen, progenitor of the American hot dog, and Appelwoi, a potent apple cider.  This contrast between high culture and peasant heartiness somehow characterizes Frankfurt’s range of local dishes.  On the one hand there is the delicate Kerbelsuppe, made from fresh chervil cooked in bouillon and thickened with eggs and cream.  On the other, there are dishes almost touching in their simplicity.  Goethe, of whom it has been said that he wrote some bad poetry but never ate a bad meal, loathed sauerkraut.  His own taste ran to French dishes, for Frankfurt, a city of cosmopolitan bankers and merchants, has always looked west.  And south, too:  the cities greatest claim to gourmet cookery, its Gru?ne Sosse, or green herb sauce, must have come originally from Italy, brought back from the Italian tours that for centuries were obligatory for educated Germans. 

Green herb sauces turn up in French and Spanish cooking, as well as Italian, but the Frankfurt version is vastly superior to all of them.  For one thing it is made up of an extraordinary variety of interesting herbs.  Minced chives, chervil, parsley, borage, tarragon, savory, sorrel, watercress and a touch of dill go into it, with a little oil and vinegar and a touch of sugar.  Gru?ne Sosse is the perfect mate for broiled fish and meats or (a favorite Frankfurt combination) hard-cooked eggs. 

Among the meat dishes that have won fame wherever Germans cook is Kasseler Rippenspeer, which may or may not be a dish of central German origin.  Central Germans claim that its birthplace was the Hessian town of Kassel; Berliners insist that it was invented in their city by a butcher names Kassel in his now legendary shop at Potsdamerstrasse 15.  Whatever the truth of its origin may be, Kasseler Rippenspeer has earned its place as an all-German favorite.  It consists of cured and smoked loin of pork, usually reposing in a rosy blush on a bed of sauerkraut and accompanied by mashed potatoes.  Alternatively, it may be served with red cabbage and potato dumplings, which act as a sort of stomach liner for the meat’s rich red-wine-and-sour-cream gravy.

 Unlike their Westphalian neighbors, Hessians have always had a gentle hand with vegetables.  Their forte, perhaps, is onions, which form the basis of many local dishes.  Zwiebelkuchen, open tarts with fillings of onions, bacon, and a little cream, can be picked up hot at the baker’s for a picnic in the Taunus or Odenwald Mountains, or enjoyed with a glass of wine at a country inn.  Baked in both large and small forms, Zwiebelkuchen provide an interesting German equivalent for the popular French tart called a quiche.

There has always been a gemu?tlich tone to life in Hesse, particularly in the fall, when Appelwoi is drunk everywhere in much the way that Heuriger, or new wine is drunk in Vienna.  In Sachsenhausen, a Frankfurt suburb, Appelwoi taverns crowd each other, each decorated with a huge fresh evergreen wreath to announce that the local nectar is ready.  The huge fluted glasses of cider are dispensed by the owners from enormous stone jugs holding 10-15 quarts.  Along with the glasses come plates, for it is customary- and wise- to temper Appelwoi with the famed Frankfurt Handka?s mit Musik, a soured cheese doused with an oniony French dressing and eaten with dark bread and butter.  Steaming in large kettles are genuine Frankfurter Wu?rstchen, five or six inches long, made with beef rather than pork and far tastier than our American hot dogs.  Also available are Salzgeba?ck (salty baked goods, such as pretzels and cheese sticks) from baskets of well-upholstered peddlers- all of them ladies- who stream in and out of the tavern and are not above lifting a glass of Appelwoi themselves when offered.  

When Germans think of Thuringia, they think of the traditional Thuringian Bratwurst, the pork sausage grilled over open wood fires whose aroma permeates the meat and fills the air.  They remember biting into the skin of these beauties- a skin far crispier than that of most sausages, because splashing of cold water during the final grilling make it deliciously brittle.  They think, too, of the round Thu?ringer Klo?sse, dumplings made with potatoes rather than bread, flour, or oats as in other parts of Germany. 

Cooking old-fashioned Thuringian dumplings called for a skill and discrimination astonishing to outsiders.  For one thing, they are made without eggs, a feat that requires the lightest touch if the dumplings are not to come out leaden.  There were different schools of thought on the best ingredients to bind and strengthen the dumplings: some cooks use milk and semolina; others, potato starch.  Some very special varieties of dumplings had their adherents.  Watteklo?sse, called “cotton dumplings” for their ethereal quality, were made with cooked potatoes, potato starch, and milk; Gru?ne Klo?sse, or green dumplings, were not green in color, but contained both raw (that is, green) and cooked potatoes.  Local feelings ran high in that dumpling country, where standard kitchen equipment included such necessities of the dumpling-maker’s craft as sets of potato presses and little cloth bags in which dumpling potatoes were squeezed dry. 

The meats that were cooked with these dumplings matched them in variety and strength.  Topfbraten, one of the aftermaths of slaughtering day, consisted of such parts of a pig as ears, kidneys, snout, and heart, all cooked in a sauce thickened with gingerbread and plum butter.  Ro?stbratl was a slice of pork grilled or roasted and basted with a dark local beer.  Spread with mustard, it was eaten on dark peasant bread and washed down with beer or a crystal-clear Schnaps called Nordha?user Korn.  The regional equivalent of Beefsteak Tartar consisted of ground pork, rather than the customary beef, seasoned with salt, pepper, minced onions and a little minced pickle; this mixture was spread with mustard and served on a fresh Semmel, or white roll. 

Thuringia was a conservative land, well pleased with what had pleased her forefathers.  Why bother with foreign culinary ways when the local dumplings were justly famous throughout Germany?  And why learn new ways of baking when the local open fruit tarts were the juiciest in the Vaterland?  The latter opinion was well founded.  Thu?ringer Obstkuchen, for example, consisted of a thin layer of yeast dough, topped with a layer of sweet semolina or flour porridge that absorbed the juices of the fruits and kept the crust crisp.  (Another way of getting the same effect was to cover the crust with bread crumbs or ground hazelnuts.)  A thick layer of blueberries, cherries or plums was spread over the protective coating, and the fruit was topped with a custard consisting of egg yolks, cream, raisins and rum, and lightened with the beaten whites of the eggs. 

Fruit tarts of this kind spread a heavenly smell when they are baking.  Such smells attract one to baker’s shops such as the one in Coburg (now part of Bavaria,) at the edge of the Thu?ringer Wald, which covers the mountain ranges of the region.  The food of Coburg was authentic; evident from the Thuringian dialect of the baker’s wife.   

Aromatic  smoke from grilling sausages filled the air of Coburg’s market square, surrounded by high early-Renaissance houses.  Here the Rostbratwu?rste were grilled with special finesse over fires of pine cones.  These sausages are delicious, even with a belly full of Pflaumenkuchen! 

There is more to Coburg than those Renaissance houses, with their painted big bays and ornamented facades.  For centuries the city was the home of the ducal Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family, which exported kings, queens and assorted spouses to almost every royal house in Europe.  Queen Victoria was part of that family, and her beloved Prince Albert was born near Coburg.  The Ehrenburg, the royal residence built in 1543, contains the most Baroque of all Baroque halls, where enormous male caryatids hold torches in their outstretched arms, and you can still see the apartments where Queen Victoria stayed on her visits.  High over the city looms the Feste Coburg, the greatest of all German fortresses, where Martin Luther wrote the hymn “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”  A museum in the fortress displays an astonishing collection of ceremonial coaches and sleighs dating from the 14^th to the 18^th Century, wonderfully carved, gilded and statuetted. 

The former kingdom of Saxony, east of Thuringia, contains the Baroque architecture of Dresden, the Meissen porcelain factories, and the great trade fair at Leipzig- the city that was the home of Johann Sebastian Bach and the birthplace of Richard Wagner.  As for bygone culinary treasures, the Saxony of earlier days was known for its superior cakes, different from the simpler, rural Thuringian ones but also based on dough raised with yeast.  The sweet Saxonian dough, rich in almonds, raisins, currants, and delicious glace fruits, were exemplified in the Dresdner Stollen that were baked at Christmas time.  Equally famous were the Streuselkuchen and Bienenstich, both flat sheets of a sweet, egg-enriched yeast dough; the former was topped with crisp crumbs made with butter, sugar, and flour, the latter with butter, sugar and sliced almonds.  Happily, both these cakes still survive as German favorites; indeed, they have become standards of good home baking.  Another Saxonian specialty was Plinsen, pancakes made with a combination of wheat and buckwheat flours, flavored with lemon rind and sour cream and raised with yeast.  Over these light, flavorsome griddle cakes, Saxonians customarily poured a syrup made from sugar beets, one of the great crops of the region- a syrup that resembled the ones we Americans use without own pancakes, but without the strong maple or molasses taste that characterizes our pancake syrup. 

In general, the cooking of Saxony was far less hefty than that of Thuringia, though both cuisines shared a common emphasis on meat and dumplings.  An example of the difference might be the Saxonians’ fresh and imaginative way with liver.  A Saxonian restaurant in Berlin serves an intriguing dish consisting of a well-seasoned mixture of liver, ground together with smoked bacon, cooked with eggs and a few currants, and served with a sharp onion, wine and lemon juice sauce.  Other famous liver dishes of the region, somewhat more conventional in their approach to the meat, are Leber im gru?nen Bett (liver sautéed in wine with a wealth of fresh herbs) and liver stewed in red wine with onions and currants. 

Traditional Saxonian cooking was basically Hausmannskost, or homelike food.  Typical of it were sweet-and-sour combinations , such as raisins and almonds cooked with beef or tongue, and pears cooked with pork and potatoes.  Fresh or dried fruit was often substituted for vegetables, though one of the German dishes that has achieved international fame was originally a vegetable dish from Leipzig.  The famous Leipziger Allerlei is a medley of young spring vegetables such as carrots, peas, cauliflower, asparagus and mushrooms, cooked separately and then combined in a light butter sauce thickened with a little flour and cream.  The dish reflects a German habit of thickening vegetables with a sauce.  When the vegetables are fresh, small, tender, and not overcooked, Leipziger Allerlei is an excellent side dish for chicken and other white meats. 

The traditional food of Silesia, east of Saxony, was diversified, partly because the social and class contrasts of the region were especially pronounced.  At one extreme were old aristocratic families on enormous estates and the rich owners of the great Silesian coal mines, who lived on a scale we nowadays associate with Polish and Russian princes.  At the other were coal miners and linen weavers, who lived in abject poverty.  For these people, even bread was too costly; their staple food was boiled potatoes dressed with a little cottage cheese.  A herring was a treat and so was butter.  It was said that in the linen weavers’ huts a salt herring dangled from the ceiling, and that each member of the family licked it at each meal to season his potatoes; in this way a single herring could last a whole family for as long as a year.  It is hardly surprising that the famous folk song “Vom Schlesischen Bauernhimmel,” which describes the paradise of the Silesian peasants, celebrated the mleasures of a stomach that for once was full. 

At a higher level of elegance Silesian cooking gained enormously from that of Austria, Bohemia, and Poland.  Consider a few of the best-known Silesian dishes.  Schwa?rtelbraten, a roast leg of pork cooked with sauerkraut and yeast dumplings and sauced with sour cream, might have been an Austrian dish.  With Bohemia, Silesia shared a love for poppy seeds, as in the famed Mohnstriezel, a Christmas yeast loaf filled with poppy seeds.  Polish cooking was both reflected and immortalized in Karpfen Polnischer Art, the traditional Silesian Christmas Eve dish consisting of carp served with a rich, dark-brown, sweet-and-sour sauce made with crumbled spice cakes, beer, onions, root vegetables, salt, sugar, vinegar, and lemon juice.  Like Polish cooks, Silesians specialized in soured dished, in soups made with sorrel or sauerkraut, in cucumbers dressed with sour cream, and in Bigos, a stew made with a varying mixture of meats, sauerkraut and potatoes.  And in this great hunting country, both Polish and Silesian cooks produced superb dishes of game cooked with bacon, flavored with juniper berries, thyme and nutmeg, and sauced with sour cream. 

The indigenous  dishes of upper-class Silesian cooking are vividly described in Gesegnete Mahlzeit- literally, Blessed Mealtime, but actually the German equivalent of bon appetite!- a memoir of a lifetime of culinary experience by Beda von Mu?ller, whose real name was Leo, Count Lanckoronski.  This Silesian aristocrat was not only a gourmet of the most elegant and knowledgeable kind, but also a most amusing raconteur.  His book of reminiscences is an entertaining and illuminating gastronomical and social history.  He writes of delicious oyster patties and caviar toasts, of a concentrated pigeon broth made from home-bred birds that upper-class Silesians considered essential food for invalids, of the elaborately stuffed Silesian Christmas turkey and of all the other delicacies of a sophisticated cuisine.  He describes many dumplings (including one kind made with apples), potato dishes like Stampfkartoffeln (mashed potatoes with diced bacon, eaten with cold buttermilk or sour milk as a simple supper) and thick soup-stews made with lentils, beans or dried fruit and a little smoked pork or bacon.  The best known of all these stews, and possibly the national dish of Silesia, was Schlesisches Himmelreich, or “Silesian heaven,” a casserole of dried fruit and fresh or pickled pork, served with a thick spicy sauce that fairly cried aloud for the bread dumplings that generally accompanied it. 

Silesians had a pronounced sweet tooth, perhaps because a thick brown syrup made from sugar beets was an inexpensive daily food in the region, and children ate bread and syrup for snacks or suppers.  The local cakes were much like those of Saxony, but two Silesian Christmas pastries are worth special mention.  Thorner Kathrinchen were spice-and-almond cookies baked in the shape of a woman; Liegnitzer Bomben were 3 1/2- by 2 1/2 –inch glazed “bombs” made from a spicy, dark, honey-cake dough.  Finally, there were the aromatic fruit- or herb-flavored liqueurs of Silesia, such as Kroatzbeere, distilled from blackberries, and Stonsdorfer, named after a village in the picturesque Riesengebirge range.  These pleasant potions can be had today anywhere in Germany. 

  The King: The Potato

Today die Kartoffel (the potato) is the king of German vegetables, but this was not always true.  The Germans were among the last Europeans to learn to regard this New World import as an incredible tuber.  Once they had accepted it, however, they proceeded to apply to its use more ingenuity and inventiveness than had any of their neighbors.  Mashed, sliced, diced, pureed, baked, or turned into flour, potatoes are made by the Germans into an incredible variety of dishes and even into Schnaps.  Some dishes include: triangular dessert dumplings, hot potato salad, potato pancakes, potato soup, and potato dumplings.  The Germans owe their appetite for potatoes to Fredrick the Great.  In 1744, almost two centuries after the potato had been brought to Europe from South America, Fredrick distributed free seed potatoes to reluctant peasants and decreed that they should plant them, enforcing his edict by stationing armed soldiers in the fields.  After this shotgun wedding, the parties to it lived happily together ever after.