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The Cuisine of
Northern Germany
By Gert Rausch
The Northern Style: Cold-Climate Cuisine
The rolling plains of northern Germany are simple, even monotonous in their appearance. Facing the North and Baltic Seas, they make up a broad region that in Imperial times stretched from Holland in the west to Russia and Poland in the east. But the cooking of the north is more diversified than the soil, for it has been influenced by Dutch neighbors to the west, Danish and Swedish ones to the north and Polish and Russian ones to the east. Almost all of north German cooking, native or derivative, is geared to a cold, damp climate.
The northern fishermen and peasants lived on hefty soups of cabbage and bacon, combinations of pickled and smoked meat cooked with dried fruit, roast duck and goose, halibut, flounder, eel and herring. Yet not all of the cooking is as earthbound as this, for the region includes some of Germanys most sophisticated cities. The menus of Hamburg and Bremen ship owners have included delicately sauced sole and turbot, followed by rare roast beef in the English manner, washed down by the best Burgundy. And in Berlin, where the cuisine of France had been held in high esteem since the days of Fredrick the Great, those who could afford it dined on truffles foie gras and voluptuous tournedos.
Within northern Germany, the easternmost provinces- Posen, West Prussia and East Prussia- had much in common in their food as in their way of living. All were agricultural provinces, made up of big estates farmed largely by Polish, Lett or Lithuanian labor. Many of these estates were held by the same families for generations, and they were well run, for the landed gentry loved their fields of sugar beets, potatoes, hops, barley, rye and oats. Life on these estates was patriarchal and, in matters of food, almost self-supporting.
The food of the region had been greatly influenced by that of Russia and Poland- which was all to the good, adding piquancy to the plain but substantial native cooking. The Slavs particularly left their mark in East Prussia, and East Prussia had some of the most interesting cooking of the entire region. Both sweet and sour cream, called Schmand, made soups and gravies smooth and piquant, as they do in Russian cooking. Slavic, too, was the custom of souring foods with vinegar or lemon juice, producing such ground-meat combinations as the famous Konigsberger Klopse. But the region had its own contributions to make.
The widespread use of smoked bacon, of Raucherspeck, was typical of East Prussian cooking. It would have been almost a sin if a housewife failed to brown her hashed brown potatoes in it, or to include it in a pot of dumplings. It dominates a dish that brings nostalgia to all who grew up in East Prussia: Graue Erbsen mit Speck, a special kind of dried peas cooked with bacon and further flavored with onions, vinegar, pepper, and a little sugar. The dusky flavor of smoked bacon and the tartness of sour cream are the elements characteristic of eastern German cooking. The two turned up together in festive roasts of veal or beef, browned in the bacon and sauced with the cream.
Hunting was the passion of the region. In the fall, when the birches and oaks turned golden against the cool emerald shade of the pines, you could hear the distant rattle of the beaters and the startled cried of fleeing jays and woodpeckers. When the early northern dusk gathered, the hunters returned with venison, to be grilled over a wood fire if it was young and tender, or more frequently, to be marinated in buttermilk and spices, then braised with juniper berries, stock, and sour cream.
Red cabbage, mashed potatoes, and Preiselbeerkompott, or stewed lingonberries, were the classic accessories to Elchkeule (leg of elk) and Wildschweinrucken (saddle of wild boar). The Katter dish is often served in the Masurian Lake district, where water and forest fused into a golden autumn haze. A dish of Maranen, the delicate fish of these lakes, related to the trout, cooked au bleu and served with a sauce of horseradish and whipped cream, is a nice precedent.
To the west of East Prussia are the provinces of Mecklenburg and Pomerania. Their rich farmland, planted in grains, sugar beets, and potatoes, was also used for raising cattle, sheep, pigs, and geese. All Germany has good geese, but it was the Pomeranian birds that were acknowledged supreme. Farmers wives raised geese in the competitive spirit of gardeners trying to grow the largest tomatoes or pumpkins. In the fall the geese were sent into the harvested fields to eat themselves fat and round for St. Martins Day in November, when roast goose is the standard dish in all German lands. But the very best of these superb geese were not roasted. They were reserved for the ultimate in goose dishes: Spickgans, rosy, glistening pickled and smoked breast of goose, which is the best cold cut ever thought of by man.
Making Spickgans was a serious affair: the culinary reputations of the massive wives of the Pomeranian Gutscherren, or landed gentry, depended on it.
Basically, the process was a simple one. A goose breast was cut into halves and each half was rubbed with salt and pepper, a little saltpeter and a touch of sugar. The meat was left to stew in its own juices for a week or so, then rubbed free of clinging salt, dried off and lightly smoked a couple of times. The real secret lay in the amounts of salt and saltpeter and in the kind of smoke.
The seasonings had to be exactly right if they were not to produce too sharp a Spickgans: the smoke had to come from a fire of beech wood combined with a few juniper branches and a handful or so of peat. The combination of firewood, the heat of the fire, the length of the smoking remained the Gutsherrins secret, transmitted to her marriageable daughters.
Pomeranians enjoyed other dishes made with goose almost as much as this aristocrat of them all. The Ganseklein was made from bits of the bird cooked with celery, carrots, and parsley; when the dish was half done, dried fruit such as apples, pears and prunes were added, and the whole was served with potato dumplings.
The Schwarzsauer von Gans was a mixture of goose blood mixed with vinegar to prevent it from clotting, thickened with flour or groats and flavored with salt, sugar, nutmeg, and cloves. Even pickled goose stomach, shredded and dressed with onions, thyme and vinegar, was enjoyed by the Pomeranian peasants, who ate it as a spread with dark bread.
In both Mecklenburg and Pomerania, the abundant fish taken from the Baltic Sea and inland lakes might turn up at any meal. I remember a visit to Rugenwaldermunde , one of the small seaports that turned into modest family resorts every summer. There is a small hotel, famed for its roast breast of pork , stuffed with prunes and apples and served with red cabbage.
The meat is usually preceded by eel cooked au bleu, with boiled potatoes and cucumbers in sour cream containing plenty of dill.
Eel was, in fact, a highly prized staple food, and smoked eel was often served either with well-buttered rye bread or with a dish of scrambled eggs and home-fried potatoes. Some fishermen smoked their own fat, juicy eels, hanging them on rafters over a peat fire set in a brick hearth. The smell of fish, smoke and tar was unforgettable.
Characteristic of both the Baltic coast and the Waterkant, or North Sea coast to the west, was a fondness for pickled fish and pickled meat, especially pork. Herring was the fish most frequently pickled.
Called by such names as Matjes, Bismarck and Brathering, pickled herring was served not only as a smack with rye bread and butter, but also as a full meal, with boiled potatoes and clabbered milk. Smoked fish also brought fame to the North Sea province of Schleswig-Holstein, particularly Buckling and Kieler Sprotten.
Bucklinge are bloaters large, fat herring slightly salted and smoked for only a short time, so as to retain their juiciness; they are the pride of the English breakfast table and they were equally beloved by the sturdy sons and daughters of the Waterkant.
Kieler Sprotten, even tastier, are a variety of herring cured like bloaters; the best of them were made in Kiel, the port from which they took their name.
Two other Schleswig-Holstein delicacies are Katenschinken and Katenwurst- types of ham and sausage, respectively, that were originally smoked in peasants huts caked Katen.
Taken with a glass or two of Klaren, the faintly caraway-flavored, clear Schnaps that is the water of life in those parts, Katenschinken dispels sorrow. One can find this combination of refreshments in Eutin, a charming old town in the Holstein lake district with a romantic castle on a romantic lake in a romantic park of enormous beeches, and romantic little red-brick houses on winding cobbled streets.
Suffice it to say that a plateful of Katenschinken and rye bread, served with the proper refreshments in an old paneled inn, is enough to restored anyones morale. Presently in Eutin, the town is full of mod and miniskirted teenagers on a way to rock and roll sessions in the former orangerie of the castle- but the Katenschinken and Katenwurst, the Klarer and the beer all taste as good as ever.
Along the North Sea coast from Schleswig to Friesland were bountiful supplies of fish that found their way into various Labskaus, nautical dishes originally cooked by seafarers aboard ship, that included onions and potatoes with fish, beef or both, and were flavored with anchovies or herring and served with sour pickles. But there was also more delicate seafood- sole, turbot, sea perch, tench and brill- that to my mind are upper class fish. In port cities along the coast, elegant restaurants catered to the needs of rich and discriminating businessmen.
Fish dishes were prepared with white wine, cream, eggs, shrimp and mussels, and served in the classical French manner with nothing but boiled potatoes.
Of all these cities, Hamburg was- and still is- the most famous for its excellent restaurants. There has always been a sophisticated, cosmopolitan air to that great city, reflected in the food eaten by the wealthy shipping people and distinguished city councilmen and senators.
The finest symbol of this divine food is the Mastgeflugel, the fowl raised southeast of Hamburg in the district called the Vierlande. Chickens, particularly, were famous under the name of Stubenkuken- literally, chicks raised in a small room, rather than a barnyard, to keep them plump, tender and flavorful.
The classic way of cooking Stubenkuken was to brown them gently in butter, then stew them in their own juice with diced smoked bacon, shallots and mushrooms. They were served in their own casserole with little new potatoes browned in butter.
The fanciest version of this dish, Bremer Kukenragout, was not a ragoût proper but was so called because the sauce was a ragoût, cooked with white wine and a little lemon juice and containing mushrooms, stewed oysters or mussels, crayfish tails or veal sweetbreads, and perhaps even tiny dumplings and asparagus tips.
The Vierlande is famous not only for its high-quality birds but also or its architecture and its great flower and vegetable gardens. Its name means four countries, and refers to four very old settlements established on drained marshes along the branches of the Elbe River. As you walk along the reads atop the dikes, farmhouses dating back to the 16th Century lie several feet below you- colorful and imposing half-timbered buildings in patterned rosy brick, with enormous A-line thatched roofs. Incongruously attached to the old farms are enormous expanses of modern greenhouses where tulips, daffodils, lilies of the valley, roses, carnations, asters and chrysanthemums grow for the flower shops of Hamburg; beyond them stretch row upon neat row of early carrots, peas, leaks, beans, asparagus, and tomatoes, all destined to be eaten young, tender and out of season.
With the Vierlande one enters upon the inland regions of northern Germany, south of the Baltic and North Sea coasts. Regions such as Niedersachen (essentially, the kingdom of Hanover in Imperial days) and Brandenburg belong to northern Germany, yet their cooking has much in common with that of their neighbors to the south. This is evident when traveling through Germany, searching for the cooking of the past and present.
The dishes if the southern parts of Niedersachsen, far from the North Sea, were clearly similar to those of Westphalia in central Germany. Suffice it to say that it is earthbound, like the endless flat fields that stretch under a low, cloudy sky, and like the taciturn, solid people of the region, whose first demand of their food and drink is that it be plentiful and substantial.
But there are also romantic and evocative parts of this inland region of northern Germany. Among them is Luneburg, one of the most beautiful cities in all Germany. Once a member of the Hanseatic League, Luneburg is a city in which Gothic style mingles with Renaissance and Baroque. The stepped, half-brick mansions and half timbered houses, the lofty churches and the decorative beams and wall paintings in the banquet hall of the medieval town hall should be seen by any visitor to Germany.
South of the city stretches the Luneburg Heath, once a ravishing wilderness of sand and moors, birches and heather, moor hens and nesting cranes that captured the imagination of all romantic Germans. In recent years much of the wilderness has given way to drained croplands, but sandy paths lined by silver birches still lead off into the moor and heather to please the most solitary if wanderers, and there are still little romantic villages and tiny towns clustered around little red-brick town halls.
Typical of the foods of the region are dark and fragrant heather honeys, and the meat of the Heidschnucken, a breed of curly-horned sheep peculiar to the heath.
I can report, however, that the taste of roast Heidschnucken, even when served in a restaurant in the vaulted cellars of the old town hall, is no different from that of other, less picturesque sheep.
Visiting Luneburg, traveling south from Lubeck, one can eat Pinkel with kale, a casserole dish hugely fancied in those latitudes. Pinkel is a lightly smokes sausage made with groats, raw bacon, onions, salt and pepper. But Pinkel is not the only meat in this casserole, as I learned. Pass by the attractive restaurants in the citys fashionable streets, and wander instead into the cobblestoned little streets lined with small, half-timbered houses where humbler citizens live jammed together like sardines in a box.
There is an unpretentious tavern that bears two signboards: Frischer Pinkel mit Braunkohl (fresh Pinkel with kale) and Bragenwurst mit Grunkohl (Bragen sausage with kale). In the smoky interior, one finds earnest card players at their evening game of skat. Order both house specialties and one receives the following. The first casserole contained not only Pinkel, but a solid slice of smoked bacon, a large smoked pork chop, and a Kochwurst, a rich sausage five inches long.
The meat of my second casserole was Bragenwurst, a lightly smoked, thin sausage made from flour, oats and pigs brains seasoned with onions, pepper and salt. The sausage, a curved 10-inch length of it, nestled in a bed of kale that had been cooked with lard, onions and a little ground pork.
For the benefit of my studies, I ate a little of each, then recuperated from the experience with a digestive combination of Luttje Lagen, or Schnaps and beer.
Sausage power does not end in Hameln. It reaches its climax in Braunschweig, the city known in America as Brunswick, which is famous for Braunschweiger sausage, a lovely pinkish-brown, refined version of liverwurst, Not that Braunschweiger is the only sausage produced in the city; there are any number of others. They appear in their best in a Schlachtplatte (literally slaughter plate, from the fact that is was originally a by-product of a slaughtering day), a popular combination of meats and sausages.
The Braunschweiger version was a nobly massive one, which inspired awe in strong men and led them to put away several Korn (the local Schnaps) and beers while tackling their Manneressen (best translated as male fodder).
There is also a gentler gastronomic side to Braunschweig. It was here that I first became conscious of the beauty of asparagus, the crown of the German vegetable world. It is frequently served with butter and bread crumbs or with hollandaise sauce. Years ago eating asparagus with a fork was considered lower class- it was preferable for one to eat it with thumb and forefinger.
In those days, the beauty of medieval and Renaissance Braunschweig was largely intact; about a thousand half-timbered houses of those periods were still in use.
World War II destroyed all but the core of the city, but as elsewhere in Germany, a new city has risen from the ashes.
Now it is reassuring to see the restaurant advertisements in the local papers proclaiming bigger and better Schlachtplatte than ever. The memories of Berlin are the memories of a lifetime, overlaying each other like a cake made from pressed layers of experience.
During the German inflation of the 20s, a shopping bag full of inflated marks bought one piece of Punschtorte, pink and chocolate cake. There was also crisp Kartoffelpuffer mit Apfelmus (potato pancakes with applesauce), sprinkled with salt rather than sugar, and Graupensuppe mit Backpflaumen (barley soup with prunes.)
At Schlichters restaurant, the most delicate Gebratene Kalbsleber auf Berliner Art (pan-fried liver with apples and onions,) and Schweinebauch mit Mohrruben (pigs belly cooked with carrots and served with boiled potatoes in a light sauce) delighted such members of Berlins theatrical intelligentsia as Berthold Brecht and Emil Jannings.
On the whole, Berlin is more significant as a cosmopolitan city than as a center of unique regional food. There you can get any German or foreign specialties in restaurants like Kranzler, Kempinski or the Ritz, cooked and served with great elegance.
But the food of the people is basically simple and generally reminiscent of older German dishes. What is characteristic of Berlin food, perhaps, is the local predilection for ground or shredded meat dishes.
The famous Schabefleisch or Hackepeter (local versions of Beefsteak Tartar, made with beef and pork, respectively), Deutsches Beefsteak and Falscher Hase (hamburgers and meatloaf, the latter a so-called mock hare), Lungenhaschee (hash made from lungs) and Sulze (head cheese)- these are dishes that Berliners have always greatly admired. And there is the Sulzkotelett, a pork chop under aspic, generally eaten with home-fried potatoes.
Of the vegetables typical of Berlin, there was the Teltower Rubchen, a delicate little root once grown in a nearby suburb, but today a vegetable that can hardly be found. The asparagus from the sandy fields of Brandenburg was excellent, and it was part of an elegant chicken fricassee of French inspiration Huhner Frikassee mit Champignons und Spargel, which dates back to the days when Huguenots fled from France to Berlin to escape religious persecution.
No ordinary fricassee, this is a blanquette of chicken, with a sauce of white wine, egg yolks and cream, served with fresh mushrooms and asparagus tips. But the vegetable most beloved by ordinary Berliners is the cucumber, pickled as Saure Gurke, braised in butter and dill as Schmorgurke, or served as a salad dressed with our cream and dill.
Berliners have always been fond of a quick bite, called a Rascher Happe or a Happenpappen.
Before the war, the famous Aschinger stand-up restaurants dispensed hot dogs by the hundreds of thousands, with potato salad and beer or coffee.
Only one Aschinger restaurant survives today in West Berlin, but there are numerous stands that serve more sophisticated fare, such as curry sausage and shashliks. Two other quick snacks deserve mention. One is Soleier mit Mostrich, hard-cooked eggs pickled in brine (the shells are pricked with a needle at the top and bottom to allow the brine to penetrate) and eaten with mustard of a little French dressing.
In the old days these eggs were part of the free lunch set up in Berlin beer taverns, and the large glass jar in which the eggs were pickling stood in a prominent place on every Theke, or bar. The second quick smack, called Strammer Max, sturdy Max, is a well buttered slice of dark bread topped with a thick slice of smoked of cooked ham, on which two fried eggs rest under a sprinkling of minced chives.
The best known characteristic cakes of Berlin, called Berliner Pfannkuchen, are made with a yeast dough filled with plum or apricot jam and deep fried. They are essential for celebrating on New Years Eve. Similar cakes called Spritzkuchen are ring-shaped, deep-fried crullers. Freshly made and cooked in good, fresh fat, they are even more irresistible then Phannkuchen.
The Christmas cakes called Baumkuchen, the most subtle and original of all German cakes, are said to have originated in Berlin. Rising two or three feet tall, Baumkuchen are designed to resemble the trunk of a tree, and to contain the inner rings that a tree develops in growth.
The cake is constructed around a central shaft on which thin successive layers of a rich egg dough are spread and baked, one at a time. Finally the cake is glazed with sugar or chocolate. Thanks to the shaft, such a cake is in reality a large tube, but when it is cut horizontally in thin slices, its dozens of layers and their brown edges do resemble a tree. I cant think of a better Christmas present than a pound or two of Baumkuchen.
One can still get an old-fashioned Berlin meal in one of the small inns or beer places. In the Wedding, the working class district, you can go to a Kneipe, or tavern, for a plateful of Rinderbrust mit Bouillonkartoffeln und Roten Ruben, boiled ribs of beef served with potatoes cooked in bouillon, and red beet salad, or Hoppelpoppel mit Salat, a combination of sautéed cooked potatoes, meat leftovers and onions, folded over like an omelet, with lettuce dressed with sour cream.
In a middle-class restaurant, sitting on a terrace overlooking the forest-encircled lake called the Wannsee, you might start with potato soup, proceed through Hammelfleisch mit Grunen Bohnen, mutton cooked with green beans, and end up with a large Schillerlocke, a tube of puff pastry filled with whipped cream and said to resemble the curls of German poet Schiller. In both of these Berlin eating places you might accompany your meal with a Molle- that is, a glass of either Schultheiss or Patzenhpfer lager, the two most popular Berlin beers- and take einen Schuss Korn, a clear Schnaps, as a chaser.
Of all Berlin beers, however, the famed Berliner Weisse is certainly typical of the city. This is a pale, tart ale, low in alcohol content, served in a vast goblet. It can be drunk as is, but it usually comes mit Schuss, a dash of pink raspberry or green woodruff syrup. The drink may sound awful, but it is not. What you get is a refreshing mild beverage that has little in common with ordinary beer- a beverage suitable for children, weak women or summer swelterers.
The Business and Pleasures of Buying and Selling
Much of the meat and seafood of northern Germany is sold amidst the clamorous bustle of traditional open-air markets. In many villages, such as Osterholtz-Scharmbeck, a square is set aside for the buying, selling, and trading of livestock.
Cattle and horses change hands at annual sales; pigs, the most popular source of meat dishes, are brought in every week, and many a householder stocks his own table at the pig auction.
In a typical transaction, a buyer makes his selection of a young porker by heft and feel, and the purchase is concluded on the spot.
In the early days of such public livestock markets, buyers butchered their own pigs, and cured and processed their own pork. Nowadays, butchering, curing and processing are usually done by professionals, either on the farmers premises or in one of the packing plants that abound in the region.
As a grain-producing and livestock-raising area, northern Germany provides meat for other parts of the country, and as Germanys only coastal region, it furnishes all the nations domestic seafood. From its packing plants roll carloads of lard, bacon, Wurst and fresh pork for the great cities and industrial areas of the country.
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