Food Friday: Fasching Kra…WTF?!

I am feeling decidedly uncreative today, so I thought you, the reader,  should do my work for me. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to explain the donut at the top on the right side.

Huh???

Yes that is a syringe. I believe it is filled with strawberry icing, but that  is just a guess. The best explanation wins a prize from Germany. Do not worry, it will not be one of those donuts.

Close-up

And just in case you don’t remember the last year’s German donut lesson, here it is:

So as Fasching approaches all the stores are decorating.  This mostly means one is surrounded by clowns and feather boas.  The bakeries have all their different types of Krapfen out on display. I have now eaten two and I think I have reached my donut limit for the rest of the year.

But as you know German is a fun language and Bavarians and Austrians often have their own names for things. So if I do want another and am in Berlin I cannot just ask for Krapfen.

So if you would ever like a doughnut filled with stuff in Germany around carnival season, here is what you need to know:

1. In Bavarian and Austria = Krapfen
2. In most of the rest of Germany = Berliner
3. In Berlin = Pfannkuchen. This makes perfect sense because that word in the rest of Germany means a type of pancake. Why would we want to make this easy on anyone?!

Food Friday: Salad Dressing of the Future

Hey, you! Yes, you.

Do you want to eat lettuce for the vitamins and fiber but can’t stand the taste?

Does the color green seem off-putting?

Do you hate vegetables so much you want to drown them before you stab them with your fork and slowly chew them to bits?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then German salads are for you.

[Cue Music] 

Here in Germany scientists and culinary artists have worked to make sure you never have to taste those disgusting vegetables again.

It’s called German Yogurt Salad Dressing, and you want to pour it on every veggie you see!

Especially these guys (wink)

And don’t worry that this dressing will be too thick and lumpy! Bavarian experts have specially designed it to be the consistency or water.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you too can make this wonderful sauce of wonder. Just click on this link, your gateway to the future: LINK TO THE FUTURE

Let’s check in to see how Betty is using this new recipe in her Kitchen of the Future.  While showing her daughter what is is store for her (lots of ironing), Betty’s husband called.

 

I love ironing!

Oh no! The boss has invited himself over for dinner. Now Betty needs to whip up something quick. It looks like it is time for the Salad Dressing of the Future.

 

Close, Betty (or was it Nancy?), but there are still a few square millimeters that aren’t completely covered. You don’t want to embarrass your husband in front of his boss with exposed vegetables. Wink!

Manic Munich Monday: Excessive Honesty

The German stereotype of Americans I hear most often is that we are fake.  Some have rightly said that with many Americans you cannot tell where you stand with them.  I would agree that this, like many stereotypes, is somewhat accurate of many from my homeland. Nevertheless, sometimes I really miss polite, white lies.

Now you might say, Sue you are one of the most tactless individuals on the planet. You in fact relish in saying whatever is on your mind even when that makes you look like a crazy, heartless b*#&%.  And you would be right. This should give you a sense of just how brutally honest many people in Munich are, if I find it uncomfortable.

Perhaps the place where this excessive honesty is most often on display is at dinner parties.

Now if you are like me and raised in what the those crazy kids in congress today are calling “The Real America”, you were taught that when you are a guest in someone’s home you eat what they serve.  Just to be safe you should probably ask for seconds. It doesn’t matter if it tastes like dog food or, in fact, if it is dog food. You must be polite and eat it without comment, if you are not able to say something nice. The only way around this is to claim you have a food allergy. But you must carefully deploy this excuse. For example, the host has prepared a casserole (see I told you I was from “The Real America”) with  melted cheese, crushed up saltines, and broccoli in some sort of off-brand cream of mushroom soup that tastes slightly of gasoline.  If you say you are lactose intolerant, you better make damn sure that for the rest of the time you know this person you are never again seen with ice cream, cheese pizza, or other dairy products that make life worth living.

In Munich this, at least, is not a problem. Do you not like something? Well pick it out and shove it to the side. Don’t bother trying to hide it. If they ask you how you like something, say it is alright but you wouldn’t have used so much sugar. Pasta overcooked? Tell them to go back and make a new batch, you will wait.

What is most surprising to me is that German hosts don’t seem to mind. If you say something is good, be prepared to explain why otherwise they will be suspicious. I try to find one small thing I am not crazy about to comment on so they think I am being honest. Maybe the day I complain about the amount of salt in the soup, I will know I am a real Municher.

Pictured: No holds barred honesty. (Actually this is the first picture of a dinner party I found. Everyone agreed the food was amazing. Probably because so many of the guests were Canadian)

Food Friday: Ritter Sport

[Waldenbuch, 1932, 3am]

Clara: Schatzi, wake up!

Alfred: (German swear words) what is it?

Clara: I have an idea.

Alfred: (more German swear words) what is it this time?

Clara: We should make a chocolate bar that fits into everyone’s jacket pocket.

Alfred: hmph, can’t we talk about this in the morning?

And thus the Ritter Sport was born!

 

Mmmm, chocolate

Ok, so I made up that it happened in the middle of the night and that Alfred Ritter swore like a sailor, but the rest is accurate. NB: Pocket does not mean jeans pocket because no one wore them in 1930s Germany and it would get all melty and gross.  Now you know why this chocolate bar that is full of fat and other goodness can have the name Sport. If you walk/run while eating the pieces in your pocket it almost makes up for eating one of these.

Yes, they now sell Ritter Sport in the States, but not in so many flavors. I frankly think the actual chocolate tastes kinda blah, but I love all the fillings.  My favorite is the strawberry yogurt filling.  Or maybe raisins and hazelnuts. Or maybe the white chocolate with hazelnuts.

The often release special limited flavors, last summer it was stracciatella gelato (which was really like ice cream), mango peach in white chocolate, and wild-berry yogurt.  I would never become a “Ribhead” but I would happily wander around Germany to get those flavors again if it would do any good.

The slogan in German “Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut.” (“Square. Practical. Good.”)  Frankly, I think this says it all.

Food Friday: German Christmas Desserts, you have Stollen my Heart

Sorry it couldn’t be helped. Continuing the Christmas theme, on today’s menu is Stollen. (Although not really, since I ate the last slice I had last night).  Stollen is a bread-like cake with dried fruit, nuts, or marzipan that is topped with powdered sugar. It is traditionally sold around Christmas time. Supposedly the loaf shape was meant to look like the swaddled baby Jesus.

Ahhhhhh!!!! You hacked into the Baby Jesus!!!!!! He is not the bread yet; wait until he is in his 30s!!!

I sorta wish I had not read the part about looking like the baby Jesus, because now every time I see a nativity I will get hungry for some German fruit cake.  German, mind you! Not that horrible stuff we have in America with the candied fruit that is soaked in booze.

The most famous Stollen comes from Dresden and there is even a Stollenfest there.   The festival began in 1730 when Augustus II the Elector of Saxony order the creation of a Stollen big enough to feed all his subjects.

The red smoke must be coming from the kitchens as they try to make the huge Christmas cake. Also his sword is sheathed because there is no way that could cut through the Stollen

The bakers created a special oven and a humongous knife was fashioned.  Unfortunately, the crust was really hard and the insides were rather uncooked. Nevertheless it was for the subjects, so who cares!  The tradition of giant Stollen is still alive today. The biggest was made in Dresden in 2000 and weighed 4,200 kilos.

Since this is Germany, in recent years Dresden has elected a Stollenmädchen, whose “primary role is to fulfil prestigious tasks in connection with the preparation of the Dresden Stollen Festival, the representation of Dresden`s baker and pastry-chef trade and the marketing of the stollen. In this function, she travels across Germany, visits closely related towns, Christmas fairs and other events, and appears on TV and radio shows promoting the German “Christmas capital” Dresden.”

You can visit their website and see pictures of the “Stollen Girl.” The festival takes place tomorrow so you better start making your travel plans.

If you can’t manage that, you should at least know something of the history of the Stollen. Like all good stories, it includes a pope:

In the fifteenth century during Advent bakers were only allowed to use oil and not butter. In Saxony (northeast of Bavaria) oil was hard to come by so they had to use water or oil made from turnips (yuck). This meant that the Christmas cakes were hard and tasteless.  Electoral Prince Ernst and his brother, Duke Albrecht, decided to change all of this and wrote the pope asking him to allow bakers to use butter during the fasting time of Advent.  The pope gave in to their request and sent a letter, known as “butter-letter”, to Dresden. In that letter he had declared that richer ingredients were allowed. In return, the Dresden Stollen bakers had to pay a fine. The money was used, for example, for the construction of the Freiberg Cathedral.

So there you have it. If you don’t like something about the Catholic church, just get some prince to write a letter. While you are waiting–the pope did not give in right away–how about a slice of Stollen?

 

My Favorite Things Thursday: Advent Calendars

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…in Munich that is. Although Munich is better known as the home of Oktoberfest, I think of it more as Christmas Town. Here is the documentary I shot last year to record my first experience of Munich in December.

As you can see, I have a little more color in my cheeks (a very little) and I have gained a considerable amount of weight since then. Speaking of gaining weight, Advent Calendars.

Now if you grew up in the States you were lucky if you got an advent calendar with chocolate imported from Germany.  The problem with those that made it to the US was that the chocolate was pretty crappy. Usually it was just some tasteless chocolate poured into a plastic sheet of twenty-four molds in the shapes of different things which was inserted into the cardboard container with the little doors. Nevertheless, as a child I thought these were pretty amazing.

[Fisher residence, 1990] Sue: Look, I got a piece of chocolate shaped like a bell and I can eat it before breakfast!!!

These childhood experiences in no way prepared me for REAL German advent calendars.  I was first astonished by the sheer variety.

 

Ahhh, which one???

This photo is rather blurry because I was being jostled by a woman trying to grab the last type of one of these before this other person did. I believe there is a saying in Germany used to express that someone feels pure, innocent joy: Wie ein Erwachsene im Adventskalendarsladen.  Ok, so maybe not, but there should be because these are pretty amazing. Instead of plastic chocolate you get entire truffles.  Really, who does not want to wake up in the morning and get a truffle just for waking up?

So here is the one I selected on the grounds of price, type of chocolates, and being able to carry it home on a crowded subway. Look how artfully I arranged the photo.

 

Note the pointy ends with which to jab people on the subway that were in my way

The first day I got chocolate with nougat and amarena (with cherry not just flavor) filling.

Tasted better than it looks

Now you might say, aren’t you leaving on the 13th to go home? What are you going to do, take the calendar on the plane?

No, of course not!  I have a cunning plan. In fact, it is as cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University. I am going to eat two a day as my countdown to going home.

 

 

Food Friday: Leberkäse

My bologna has a first name. It’s L-E-B-E-R. My bologna has a second name. It’s K-A-umlaut-S-E.

 

It almost tricks you into thinking it is yummy bread, but then you realize it is ground up meat bits. Eww

 

Ok, the second part doesn’t really fit the song. Still, thick slices of bologna is essentially what Leberkäse is.  It is also one of the most common sandwich fillers in Munich. I was late getting to the restaurant/bakery of the Conde Nast building today, so it was the only type of sandwich left. Shiver! Strangely enough, I am not a big fan of something that consists of ground-up corned beef, pork, bacon, and onions which is then baked in a bread pan. Nevertheless, it is filling and won’t kill you. Well maybe it will give you heart disease if you eat too much, but that would take some time.

Broken into its parts the name literally mean liver cheese. Now aren’t you hungry? According to a reliable source, linguists believe that the etymology of the word either involves the Middle High German word lab (to clot) or the word laib (loaf), and the Slavic root quas (feast).  I am going to take the clot version of the story.

Maybe they should advertise it this way:

[Small boy fishing on a dock]

Boy: (sings) Because Leberkäse has a way/of causing blood clots that kill you/but not today

Silly Signs Sunday

HA! We’re back! (Car Talk reference #1). I thought I would write a new post instead of having you read tons of classic blog posts. And by classic we mean old. (Car Talk reference #2. Can you tell what I listened to all morning?) I am still suffering from Jet Slap (def: a bitch slap administered by time), so I thought I would do something easy. For me, that means making snarky comments about blurry pictures I took around town.

You got orange soda in my coke! You got coke in my orange soda! Together they taste like crap!

Oh Mezzo Mix, with your stupid slogan, “Cola kisses Orange”, what can I say about you? A lot actually.  Especially because I missed Food Friday. First of all, Mezzo Mix is the Coca-Cola brand of something known generically as Spezi. Spezi is just orange soda mixed with regular cola. A reliable source reports that “due to its thirst-quenching qualities, it is particularly popular in ski resorts and mountain huts, where it is often served in amounts of half a litre. By contrast, it is hardly ever seen in Vienna.” I think this is because the Viennese are not crazy. The Pepsi brand is called Schwip-Schwap, which is about 95.3 times more fun to say than Mezzo Mix. Try it! Come on, I know you want to.

What you shouldn’t try is Spezi. I think it tastes gross. Some flavors just shouldn’t come together. For example, orange and toothpaste. Imagine this sign with the man who represents cola replaced with a toothbrush covered with toothpaste and the blond woman (i.e. orange soda) still kissing it, and you would feel the same nauseous feeling I do when I look at this ad. (Don Draper, between drinks and sleeping with his mistresses, just let me know that I will  never have a career in advertising.)

Refrigerator Heaven?

The chain of electronics stores here in Germany is called Saturn.  They sell printers, computers, music, household appliances, etc. Their spokesperson is Alice Cooper, which makes perfect sense to me. However, I don’t think they are really tapping into to his full potential. This is an ad for a washing machine on a bus shelter near where I live. Yes, this washer is pretty cool with its super fast programs, varied washing cycles, and life-time warranty.  But I would be more impressed if it showed Alice Cooper (birth name: Vincent Damon Furnier) doing the wash after one of the stage shows. The copy could read, “Look, it gets out fake blood,  guillotine grease, and electric chair scorch marks!”  Or, “It gets the whiskey out of the lace.” (Take that Don!)

Scarves Optional

This is a Colorforms-like ad on the windows of a salon near me. I am pretty sure the guy in the back is saying, “Do you really want your hair to look like that? It kinda looks like you are one of those poor schmucks the Weather Channel sends out into storms to report that it is indeed windy and miserable.”

Sometimes on the U-Bahn I see a group of teenage German boys each with their hair styled in a similar fashion. Although, I am pretty sure that they text each other in the morning to make sure nobody’s hair is pointing in the same direction.

P.S. Can someone please get me Colorforms for Christmas. Their slogan is “Even more fun today than when we were kids!”, which makes me wonder what these adults are using them for. According to the company, Colorforms are “playful, imaginative, creative, open-ended, approachable, clean,  and easy.” And more importantly, “reusable, repositionable, and forgiving.“

Salmagundi Sunday: My Favorite Things Meets Food Friday

I was more than a bit of a slacker this week with the blog and missed my favorite day, Food Friday. Try as we might, we humans can never go back in time. (Unless we inexplicably have a crazy scientist friend and a DeLorean). Therefore, I am combining Thursday and Friday’s posts into one.  The subject is the Österia, my favorite restaurant in Munich. I am stealing photos from their website.

[What is Salmagundi? A reliable source says it is 1. a salad plate of chopped meats, anchovies, eggs, and vegetables arranged in rows for contrast and dressed with a salad dressing or 2. a heterogeneous mixture. Obviously, my title refers to definition number 1]

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

1. The name.  A mix of osteria (literally translated from Italian it means a place where the owner hosts people) and Österreich (German for Austria). You gotta love puns.  Also it feels very much like a neighborhood place. Maybe because it is in my neighborhood.

2. I also love the atmosphere and decor.

 

Front of the Restaurant

 

 

The 'back' of the restaurant

 

3. The food is amazing. Thursday night I had pasta in an orange infused sauce with crab. For dessert I had chocolate gateau (the top part was like a brownie, the rest smooth creamy chocolate) with some sort of sorbet on the side.

 

I know this is a blurry picture, but I was taking it in a dark restaurant with my iPhone surreptitiously

 

As my friend said the next night, “how is any of this Austria?”  My answer, “well, Wiener Schnitzel is always on the menu.”

4. The Wine, which is in fact all Austrian. It comes from Oesiwine which is next door and is really all part of the same thing. Now you might say,  “Austrian wine??? I have had Grüner Veltliner and was not all that impressed.” And I would answer, “But that is why the wine here is so amazing. It is ridiculously good and they know how to pair things.”  [Alternatively, you might say, “This is a boring blog post.” My answer would then be full of obscenities.]

So if you are in Munich and looking for a great place to eat check it out.  If you do, you better damn well invite me.

Food Friday: Schnecken!!!

I woke up at 5:00 this morning. Thanks to all the cold medicine, I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. I couldn’t fall back asleep because I was pretty sure that my toes wanted to remove themselves and go for a walk on their own. [Incidentally, this is why I could never do real drugs. The prescribed amount of Nyquil is enough to mess with my head].

I also knew that I had to wait three more hours before I would be able to procure some much-needed juice. The thought of going out in the drizzle was made all the worse by the fact that the Schlecker (a drug store like Walgreen’s or CVS but without the useful pharmacy part) next door just went out of business.  As their sign points out there is another Schlecker 300 meters away. In my book, however, that is 300 meters too far. Schlecker you have permanently lost my business! It is Rossmann from now on.

That's right Schlecker (barely visible in the background of this photo of a parade for FC Bayern), you are dead to me!

Thus, I had to set off on a five-minute walk to the nearby bakery. It wouldn’t be so bad, if the bakery wasn’t so full of beautiful baked goods. They practically beg you to buy them. “Look at me! I am covered in powdered sugar!” or “Screw that guy, I have a yummy sugar glaze and lots of raisins!” I knew I would have to fight against their powers of persuasion. It was a hard-fought battle.  If I were a Klingon, I would have composed a song about this glorious fight.

That is right, I lost to a Schnecke (literally: snail). It is not too difficult to figure out the etymology (or do I mean entomology?).  Do not be deceived! This is no mere cinnamon roll (patouey!!).  The dough has a different, flakier consistency. The icing is more like a glaze. My favorite are raisin schnecken, which unfortunately they did not have this morning. This did not deter me, as a purchased a nuss-schnecke instead.

According to a reliable source, in some parts of Germany it is called Schneckennudel (snail noodle). Now doesn’t that sound yummy?