Gert Cooks, Cape Cod Chef Gert Rausch, Cooking Demonstrations, Recipes

Rhineland, goes the adage, is wine land. It is also the most civilized landscape in Germany. In Rhineland proper, vineyards grow in terrace after narrow terrace up the steep cliffs that rise from the banks of the Rhine and Mosel Rivers; to the south, in the Palatinate, they stretch unbroken to a hilly blue horizon. In picturesque towns patrician houses cluster like grapes, under castles both ruined and lived in, towering high over the rivers.

On the Rhine, commercial craft from Germany and Belgium and Holland almost jostle for space, and as sleek, white passenger ships glide past the rocks of Lorelei, the passengers invariably lift their voices in song. The green Mosel is quieter, and its vineyards rise even more steeply before they disappear into the woods that border their cliffs and hillsides.

Two thousand years ago the Romans planed the first grape cuttings in this region. We can still see Romans enjoying the fruits of their labors in a delightful Roman sculpture at the Landesmuseum in Trier, on the Mosel.

It depicts a fully manned Roman ship transporting barrels of wine, and from the faces of the sailors on that ship we can be sure they felt little pain as they sailed down the river.

As with wine, so is food. The cooking of the region reflects a live-and-let-live attitude that one senses everywhere in the shimmery, golden air of the Rhineland.

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Most of the cooking is relatively simple and casual. Robust one-dish combinations of cabbage or turnips with smoked beef are traditional among the peasants of the Eifel and the Hunsruck, the Westerwald and the Taunus, all of them wooded mountain ranges that open into wide vistas, as the Green Mountains do in Vermont.

The Rhineland is potato country, too, but potatoes are cooked there with far more imagination and grace than in northern and central Germany. Typical of the Rhinelands potato dishes are Salzkartoffeln, boiled potatoes shaken over dry heat; Schnippelkuchen, a large, egg-enriched potato pancake; Potthucke, a pudding made from raw and cooked potatoes, eggs and milk, which is baked and then sliced and fried to a crisp in butter, and which goes wonderfully with ham and a green salad; and Blech Grumbeeren, diced potatoes baked with bacon.

One of these potato dishes is worth special mention. Himmel und Erde, perhaps the most famous of the old peasant dishes, is made from equal quantities of potatoes and apples, and eaten with crisp slices of pan-fried blood sausage. In its sturdy simplicity the dish is surprisingly good.

Equally old are the traditional dishes eaten in the lowlands along the riverbanks- dishes that often reflect the influence of French occupations of earlier centuries. In Trier, an old Roman city on the Mosel, where the fortified gateway called the Porta Nigra still stands as one of the most glorious of all Roman monuments, one can find a delicious dish of tiny eels.

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They are dipped in lemon juice, wrapped in leaves of fresh sage and sautéed in butter. With this dish comes a very dry apple cider called Viez, which has none of the cloying qualities of most ciders.

Anyone who goes to Germany should stop at Trier, where a whiff of France hangs in the air and Romanesque churches loom over old streets. In Trier, there is a superb restaurant, that unlike the great majority of first-class German restaurants, specialized in local dishes.

The Kurtriersche Weinstube zum Domstein on the market square is primarily a wine shop, with a wine list that meticulously describes the characters of 14 open and about 140 bottled wines- all German. The owners wife, a graduate of the German equivalent of Frances Cordon Bleu, has resurrected many of the old dishes of the region. Among them are an excellent combination of leeks and smoked beef ribs, cooked with a rare consideration for our relatively delicate modern tastes and stomachs.

The Rhine no longer yields great quantities of salmon, but the memory of great salmon dishes survives. Scorching hot grilled salmon with a dollop of tangy, ice-cold herb butter could be found at a restaurant at Winkel on the Rhine.

It came with new potatoes and fresh green peas, just as it might have done in a Fourth of July dinner in New England, and the dry Schloss Vollrads wine was a perfect accompaniment to the dish.

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Meats are excellent throughout the region. There is the ubiquitous Rhenish Sauerbraten, marinated in wine rather than buttermilk and served with a raisin sauce.

Two other Rhenish dishes deserve mention: Kalbsleber im Backteig, small deep-fried fritters of sliced calfs liver, served with peas; and Schweinsfilet mit Apfeln, a fillet of pork spread with mustard, dipped in eggs and bread crumbs, browned in butter and baked in the oven with marjoram-favored apples and sour cream.

Some of the highest praise goes to the Rhenish way with game birds and venison. Gefullter Fasan, a pheasant stuffed with a mixture of ground chicken liver, eggs, mushrooms, onions, chervil, parsley, tarragon, grated lemon rind and a dash of brandy, wrapped in bacon and baked in the oven with frequent bastings of white wine.

Another is the Rhenish roast partridge stuffed with fresh green apples and sauced with sour cream. Best of all, perhaps, may be found in Eifel: a marinated roast of wild boar, flamed with juniper Schnaps and flavored with juniper berries and marjoram.

During the cooking the roast is basted with hot, onion-flavored red wine, and this wine, with the addition of a little sour cream, forms a sauce in which the roast is served. Marjoram-flavored mashed potatoes and a tart apple=sauce accompany the roast.

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Obviously these are not simple rural dishes, and they are served not in rural Gasthofe but in elegantly appointed and staffed de luxe restaurants. Handsome, high-style living is a tradition in the great cities of the region, and nowhere is this more true today than in Bonn, the capital of West Germany, with its concentrations of high civil servants and diplomats.

In nearby Bad Godesberg, where most of the diplomats live, there are truly fabulous restaurants such as the famous Michaeli Stuben. You must knock at the door and be greeted by the host before gaining admittance to this establishment, but here the resemblance to speak-easy days in New York ends.

Michaeli Stuben serves a strong but delicious red pepper soup with sauerkraut and cream. For a main course it is difficult to choose between Was Mutti Gerne Isst (What Mom likes to eat), a steak with chicken livers and ham, covered with a spicy cream sauce and serves with French-fried potatoes and salad, and a dish called Wotans Lustbissen (a bite for Wotans pleasure), two slices of beef fillet, mushrooms, smoked ham, red and green sweet peppers, cream sauce and rice. The latter won a prize from the Bonner Marmiten, a club of elegant gentlemen who love to cook delicious meals for one another.

The cookies of the region are good: fried Mutzenmandeln; the Hohlhippchen, which are crisp cookie cones filled with butter cream or whipped cream; and the Stuten and Blatz, the first made with raisins, the second without them. Both occupy an intermediate place between bread and cake and are eaten with apple butter.

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The most famous of these regional cookies, seldom baked at home because they are centuries-old specialties of the local bakers, are the Spekulatius, crisp, cinnamon-flavored butter cookies shaped in special molds, and the Aachener Printen, one of the best and most ancient of all German brown cookies, made without the usual honey.

While the food of Baden is some of the best in Germany, much of it is not German. Baden borders on the province of Alsace, which has slipped back and forth between Germany and France throughout its history, and the culinary ties between the two are close.

Snails cooked with herb butter, frogs legs in a cream sauce, superb trout cooked au bleu or a la meuniere, Black Forest smoked ham and bacon, partridge cooked with bacon and white wine and served with sauerkraut served in the same wine, Black Forest venison stew marinate and cooked in red wine, and a fabulous old-fashioned wild boar pie- these are some of the delights of this land of civilized good living.

The delicious plums of Baden are made into Pflaumenwasser, and excellent clear brandy. They are also used in compotes, the best of which is simplicity itself: heavily sugared, juicy plums are simmered in a slow oven, literally stewing in their own juice.

Finally there is Badens Scwarzwalder Kirschtorte, or Black Forest cherry cake, one of the most famous of all German cakes.

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Another equally popular version consists of three different kinds of white and chocolate cake layers, sprinkles with the cherry brandy called kirsch and filled with custard, a sour cherry compote (cherries must be sour for the right contrast of flavors) and whipped cream.

The top of this creation is topped with more cream and pleasantly decorated with more cherries and curls of bitter chocolate. Strong-minded and heartier lovers of kirsch may prefer the powerful local breakfast of kirsch, smoked bacon, rye bread and coffee, especially when the kirsch is poured into the coffee.

In Wurttemberg a traveler in search of food will meet all the members of the family of Spatzle (literally, little sparrows), tiny dumplings made from the white flour of the local wheat. There are Maultaschen, the local form of ravioli or kreplach; liver Spatzle; cheese Spatzle; and Knopfle Spatzle, made in the old-fashioned way by snipping the egg-and-milk dough into boiling water.

Spatzle are the potatoes of Wurttemberg, and they taste best with the thick creamy gravies that the local people make so well. But they are also good with sour kidneys, which are soaked for 30 minutes in several changes of water to remove their harsh taste, then stewed in bouillon, wine vinegar, wine and a little lemon rind.

Spatzle go well, too, with minced veal and with such humbler dishes as lentils cooked with bacon- or, most simply, with cabbage, a dish that is a rural favorite.

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In both Baden and Wurttemberg, Spatzle and a salad are considered a meal; in fact, few meals are served without a salad that may contain all or some of these ingredients: field lettuce, curly endive, dandelion greens, watercress, sorrel and chervil. But salads provide only one of the vegetable delights of the region.

Some of the best asparagus in Germany, thick, white and tender as butter, grows in Tettnang not far from Lake Constance. In the spring an asparagus mania overcomes natives and visitors alike, and everyone repairs to restaurants that list 20 or more specialties made with this king of vegetables.

The best and one of the simplest is a bowl of asparagus covered with a tart, thin hollandaise sauce, which sometimes come with a Speckpfannkuchen, a plate-sized egg pancake with bits of bacon in the batter. Another interesting vegetable of this region (it is, significantly, one of the few parts of Germany in which vegetables are cooked well) is hops.

Most of us think of hops simply as a flavoring for beer or ale, but they are delicious in a butter sauce or as a salad with a very light dressing of unsweetened whipped cream flavored with lemon juice.

To many Americans, Bavaria is little more than Munich and the Alps- which is a pity. The northern part of the state is rich in magnificent architecture and art as well as superb wines and beers. It is, in fact, a region where esthetics and gastronomy often go together, as in Pommersfelden.

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Pommersfelden is a four-story stairway decorated with an almost unbelievable wealth of stucco curlicues. A meal in a nearby inn started with Griess Suppe mit Ei, a semolina soup with an egg beaten into it, and was followed by Bratwurste, or grilled veal sausages, six on a plate accompanied by home-fried potatoes and a mild sauerkraut sprinkled with a few caraway seeds.

The people of northern Bavaria like the products of the pig, boiled as Kesselfleisch, roasted to a golden crispness in a Schwartelbraten or made as Schweinwurstl mit Kraut- a dish of coarse, marjoram-flavored pork sausages with cabbage. Other popular Bavarian sausages are the well-seasoned Milzwurst, made with veal and pieces of milt and browned in butter, and Wollwurst, which is veal so finely ground that it becomes a smooth white mass, also cooked in butter.

Then there are all the other Wurste that sustain life as a main dish or a snack, eaten with a crisp roll or a huge pretzel;, with mustard or Kren (horseradish) on the side, and accompanied by the smoky beer of Bamberg, the blond beer of Wurzburg or the rich, dark beer of Kulmbach.

What most of us think of as a typical Bavarian food is eaten in Munich and the Alpine regions. Meat is the best vegetable, say these Bavarians, and their favorite meats are pork and Kalbshaxe, the veal counterpart to the pigs knuckle favored in other parts of Germany.

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The size of a Bavarian Kalbshaxe, braised or roasted to a crisp gold, has to be seen to be believed, and so does the speed with which the natives put it away, usually with potato dumplings and a mixed green salad.

Other dishes remind one of the cooking of southern Bavarias neighbor, Austria: stuffed breast of veal; the meat of a calfs head boiled and then breaded and fried; Kalbsbeuscherl, the lung, heart and milt of a calf, made into a goulash; and the voluptuous cream sauces that go with most of these meats.

One of the passions of the Bavarians- a passion they share with the Austrians- is Schweinernes, all parts of the beloved pig, fresh, pickled, or smoked. A favorite Bavarian meat is Gselchtes, mildly smoked bacon and ham, which Bavarians often eat as a snack along with the delicious coarse, dark peasant bread, a stein of beer and a chaser of Enzian Schnaps, made from the root of the gentian, a wild Alpine flowering plant. Gselchtes is also cooked with kraut and served with Knodl, a kind of Bavarian dumpling.

These Knodl resemble the dumplings of Austria. There are Semmeknodl made with stale rolls, which become Speckknodl when they contain bits of bacon, and Leberknodl when there is liver in them. Leberknodl are perhaps the most popular, either large a main dish, or small as a garnish for consommé. Knodl also go well with meat, sauerkraut or a salad; they are eaten cold or sliced and fried as an accompaniment for stewed fruit. They are, in fact, nothing less than a culinary way of life- and an excellent one when the cook has a light hand.

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Another category of Bavarian (and Austrian) food, called Mahlspeis, includes all the good things made with white flour. Among them are Dampfnudeln, which are not noodles at all but yeast dumplings baked with a little butter and milk in a tightly covered pot so that they rise to twice their original size.

Dampfnudeln may be served with vanilla sauce or stewed fruit as a dessert, or they may make a whole supper, along with Milchkaffee (equal parts milk and coffee). Schmarrn, another dish shared with Austria, are egg pancakes made with flour, rice, semolina, or stale bread, and torn apart with two forks after being cooked.

These scrambled pancakes have entered the local idiom: unimportant or trivial remarks are not worth a Schmarrn, and a busybody will be told that something is not his Schmarrn business. Finally there is the Strudel of Bavaria. These rolls of thin pastry may be filled with fish or cabbage, and very good they are in this fashion. More conventionally they contain apples, cottage cheese or plums-or, at their best poppy seeds or cherries.

There are good reasons for the popularity of these substantial dumplings and pancakes and Strudel, which started life as peasant fare and later conquered the cities. For one thing they are inexpensive. For another they are ideal for meatless Fridays, rigorously observed in Catholic Bavaria.

In Munich, all food is beer food, and Munich beer is famous. It comes in several seasonal variations.

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The famous dark Bockbier, for example, is a strong beer brewed in the winter for consumptions the following spring. Another winter brew, Marzenbier, is popular at Munichs great autumn festival, the Oktoberfest (where it is often called Oktoberbier), and is also drunk in the spring (the word Marz means March).

In the summer connoisseurs turn to Bavarian Weissbier, light in color and quality and usually accompanied by a slice of lemon. At any time of the year the full impact of beer and beer Gemutlichkeit can be had in an evening at the Schwemme, the ground floor of Munichs Hofbrauhaus.

Beer is also part of the Brotzeit, the Munich expression for snack time, and Brotzeit calls for Schmankerl, an untranslatable term applied to any number of appealing little tidbits. All sausages but particularly Weissewurste, are Schmankerl.

So is a thick slice of juicy cheese that comes from Bavarias dairy district called the Allgau and is eaten on buttered bread with a seasoning of salt and pepper and a garnish of Radi, Munichs vegetable symbol. A Radi is a salted white radish cut into the thinnest of slices; eaten alone or as a garnish for cheese, sausage or other foods, it is inseparable from beer.

Equally popular for snacks is Leberkas. Literally translated, the work means liver cheese, but Leberkas has nothing to do with cheese and need not be made with liver. Generally it is made with finely ground beef, pork, and bacon, with a flavoring of salt, pepper, onion, marjoram, and nutmeg; the whole is shaped into an oblong loaf.

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Butchers make Leberkas not only in Munich but throughout southern Bavaria, Austria, or the German-speaking parts of Switzerland. In all these regions one will see hand-written signs in the windows of butcher shops: Hot Leberkas at 10 oclock-or at 2 oclock, or even twice a day.

The signs are important, for though Leberkas may be eaten cold, it is at its best when fresh and hot. Connoisseurs of Leberkas eat it in thick slices that have a delicious crust at the top and bottom, with good mustard and fresh dark bread or a big pretzel, all washed down with a Halbe Helle- a half liter of light beer.

A Time to Make Wine and Make Merry

In southern Germany autumn is the season for harvesting grapes and making wine, and then for celebrating a hard task well done. Along the Rhine and Mosel Rivers and in the other wine-growing regions of Germany, where centuries-old vineyards flourish on the steep hillsides, fall festivals deriving from immemorial tradition are held to pay homage to wine.

The mood of the celebrants was expressed in the 16th Century painting, one of twelve on the face of the famous clock in the Munster Cathedral in Westphalia, each representing a traditional agricultural activity appropriate for the current month. Under the picture there is a Latin inscription that means, With joyous care, October gathers the laughing grapes.

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Wine Festivals: Great Days for Gorging

One of the oldest of the German wine festivals is held in mid-September in Bad Durkheim, a picturesque village in the Rhine Valley. Here, in tents and pavilions, visitors from all over Germany sample dozens of the new seasons wines, served by the generous tumblerful. The festival turns the village into an exuberant fair, with rides for the children and hearty foods for everyone. The wine, food and genera gaiety attract most of the visitors, but the Durkheim fair also has its practical side. Not far from the fun-seekers, wine dealers and manufacturers of wine-making equipment conduct business.

A Time for Pigs to Turn into Wursts

Everybody rejoices when November kills its pig. So says the Latin inscriptions under the painting depicting the agricultural activity appropriate to November on the great clock of the Munster Cathedral. The artist showed a family, helped by a relative, doing its own butchering as was the custom in the 16th Century. After the butchering was completed and the Wurst was made, the family and the neighbors got together for a Schlachtfest, a convivial meal at which they sampled the freshly made Wurst and dined on the parts of the pig that could not be processed.

Nowadays farmers either take their pigs to a commercial plant to be slaughtered and processed or call in professional butcher to do the work. The Wurst-maker at right is working with his own equipment in the sunny backyard of one of his customers, a farmer in the Bavarian Alps, filling a casing with a Wurst paste he has made himself using his own recipe.

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Bounty from the Forest Floor

Southern Germanys Black Forest is a paradise for mushroom hunters. Women and children, who expertly search for the fungi in the forests from June through October, supply most of the local German market. Mushrooms are popular as an ingredient in German meat and egg dishes and are also prized as a delicacy on their own. Of the four popular varieties, the Pfifferling (usually called the chanterelle in English-speaking countries) is excellent with meats; the Steinpilz (yellow boletus) is often sautéed and eaten as a vegetable; the Speisemorchel (morel) is favored with scrambled eggs and omelets; and the Waldegerling (common, or field, mushroom) is used for a wide variety of dishes, including chicken fricassee.

Bibliography

Hazelton, Nika S. The Cooking of Germany. Alexandria: Time-Life Books