German

Cayuga White is an easy-to-like, food-friendly wine, unique to the Finger Lakes region. Joyce Hunt was inspired by the Riesling-like characters in her family’s Cayuga, and she developed a German-inspired dish to match the local wine.

Pretzels are probably the best snack to enjoy with beer, and if you’re a fan of stout, these pretzels are an especially winning partner. The Pennsylvania Dutch brought their love of pretzels to Penn Yan, where Birkett Mills still turns out the dark, gritty buckwheat flour that gives handrolled pretzels a distinctive, nutty flavor. Since these pretzels don’t require yeast or rising time they can be made very quickly, so start this recipe when hunger strikes. Caution: Baskets of these pretzels served with a peppy horseradish mustard will make you drink more than you may have bargained for.

New potatoes are really just young potatoes of any variety. They are crisp, waxy, and hold their shape when boiled or roasted, as in the recipes that follow. Try any of these rustic potato dishes with roast chicken, pork, or beef (see page 284).

An unusual dish with the traditional addition of chocolate for richness. This is best with hare but very nice with the much milder domestic rabbit (and quite good with chicken, too). This is one of those rare occasions when I find a long marinade really helps. You can begin the dish in the morning and finish it that day or start it twenty-four hours (or even more) in advance.

Choucroute, the Alsatian specialty, is a near-perfect party dish: you can easily make it in advance and in quantity. This version, with boiled potatoes cooked right in, is also a one-pot dish. Serve it with bread— preferably good rye or pumpernickel—and you’re all set. (Well, you’ll also need some hot mustard and beer or Alsatian wine.) Feel free to vary the meats however you like. But, as is always the case, buy sauerkraut that is either sold in bulk or packed in plastic and contains no more than cabbage and salt.

I never did find out what this was called in Germany, but I do know it’s surprisingly good even though it’s the kind of concoction you’d come up with to make use of the last three ingredients in the house. The pears’ sweetness offsets the saltiness of the ham (this is a good place to use ordinary ham, as long as it’s not too sweet; prosciutto or the like would be overkill), the green beans add freshness (and welcome color), and the three distinct textures make the eating fun. Serve with simply cooked meat or fish.

The combination of sauerkraut, juniper, and fruity wine is a divine one. You might as well use a German wine to be completely consistent. Best with pork, like Baeckoffe (page 399).

A great dressing is the key to an outstanding potato salad. And let me tell you: in our version, this German lady is wearing a nice dress. Y’all know Gina dresses well, too, and once she adds her signature “pig,” this salad is a stand-out, even among the best potato salads in Memphis.

This unexpected salmon preparation borrows flavors from Alsace. The usual partner for choucroute is a medley of pork meat sausages, but the oceany flavor of the best wild salmon works surprisingly well. The tart sauerkraut and spicy Gewürztraminer balance the richness of the fish. Juniper berries lend a distinct perfume. Needless to say, the perfect wine for this dish is the one that you used to make the sauce.

Once the Deep South’s secret, red velvet cake definitely has the nation’s attention. The cake’s distinctive color, the result of a chemical reaction between acidic vinegar and buttermilk and Dutch-processed cocoa, was originally much more subdued than that of its present incarnation. A dose of food coloring is called for to pump that reddish brown into the true red that distinguishes this cake from all the rest. The sweet and lightly chocolaty cake is layered and frosted with an indulgently rich vanilla buttercream. Made with vanilla bean seeds instead of extract, the creamy frosting sports the telltale brown flecks that signal the pure vanilla flavor to come. Some red velvet cakes I’ve tried have been a bit on the dry side, but not this one. It’s incredibly moist thanks to the buttermilk and a measure of canola oil.

Instructed by my mother to feed the cats, I would push the door open, inch by inch, watching the sliver of light from the kitchen stab into the darkness, waiting for it to widen gradually into a triangle across the floor, bright enough to reassure me that nothing was going to attack my hand as it darted through the gap to flip on the light switch inside the garage. For a month every year, our garage changed from a dark and hazardous clutter of bikes, chainsaws, and gardening equipment to a truly terrifying place. Even in daylight I avoided the place, but when obliged to enter—such as when forced to feed the cats (whom I’d gladly have let starve), or if I really needed a bike or a skateboard—I kept a keen eye on the cinder block and plank shelves at the back, where malevolent orange enamel pots burped with sinister unpredictability. Days went by. Cobwebs formed (the better to ensnare the cats). Whenever I might show the slightest hint of getting on familiar terms with this horror—of letting down my guard—the pots would burp again, the lids would clatter, the cats would scatter, trailing cobwebs into the attic, and I would fly to my mother’s legs and cling to them so tightly that she’d shriek in alarm. My reward for surviving? A measured respect for the mysteries of fermentation and a tangy mound of steaming sauerkraut bedded with boiled Polish and German sausages. It was worth it.

Although this is made from the same dough as the panettone, the final proofing time is very different: none! Stollen’s origins are attributed to Dresden, Germany, but it is made in many forms and variations throughout Europe. The name refers to baby Jesus’ blanket and it is filled with fruit to signify the gifts of the Magi. It can be folded and formed into a crescent shape or simply rolled up into a log. It is usually finished with a brushing of melted butter and heavily dusted with either confectioners’ sugar or granulated sugar. My German friends like to age their stollen for weeks before eating it, but I like it best as soon as it cools—it never lasts more than a day, let alone weeks. Almond paste is a sweet confection made with sugar and ground bitter almonds; when flavored with rose water or treated with other flavorings and food colors it is also known as marzipan. I find it amazingly delicious. It can easily be rolled into a cigar-shaped bead and used as a center core for stollen; the amount is up to you but about 4 ounces (113 g) per small loaf is probably enough.

I’m not sure why this is called German potato salad. When we made it for my German host family, they enjoyed the sweet-sour flavor, but they had never had anything like it before. Oh well, it’s good and it goes great with the bratwurst. To save time during the party, this can be made ahead and reheated on the stovetop or in the microwave just before serving.

Nothing says German more than sausage, which makes bratwurst a must for any Oktoberfest celebration. This version is made with caramelized onions that get nice and sweet to make the perfect topping for the bratwurst.

When I was an exchange student, my German host mom made “hooner schnitzel” every day for my host dad’s lunch, but my favorite part was always the brat kartoff (fried potatoes), and the crispier, the better. This is truly a German dish that is served in almost every restaurant. You can also make Wiener schnitzel (veal) and schnitzel vom schwe (pork) the same way.

Crystal’s mother’s maiden name is German. Well, actually it was Germaine, but the name was changed when her ancestors settled in South Carolina. The locals refused to call them “Germaine,” and instead just said “that German family.” To celebrate the German/Germaine family, we like to grab our favorite lager and whip out this traditional dish. The recipe calls for prepared sauerkraut, but if you like the idea of making your own, check out Crystal’s family recipe (see below).

There are two basic types of potato salad: mayonnaise-based and sugar-and-vinegar-based. I have always preferred the latter because of the sweet-and-sour element—plus it has bacon in it. This alluring sweet-and-sour salad replaces not-so-nice white potatoes with sweet potatoes (much nicer for you), and the texture of the salad has been bulked up with cauliflower.

Spaetzle is a German word meaning “little sparrow,” an evocative description of these small dumplings that have a long, irregular shape. Traditionally, they are boiled, tossed with butter, and served alongside rich, saucy dishes. We like to fry spaetzle in butter because it gives them a delicate crispy edge to contrast their tender texture. They are a nice change of pace from traditional starches like potatoes and pasta. The sourdough spaetzle’s light texture and tangy flavor are equally at home with meat or fish; they can be tossed with fresh peas or fava beans and finished with tarragon, sautéed with wild mushrooms, or combined with bite-size ratatouille for an interesting twist on a classic. Use them in place of rice or small pastas in your favorite preparations and you’ll see what a difference they can make.

A Römertopf, a porous clay pot developed in the 1960s by a German company, is often used in Alsace and southern Germany for long- simmering stews. These stews may be akin to Alsatian baeckeoffe, a pot of meat (usually beef, pork, and veal along with calf or pig feet) mixed with potatoes, marinated in white wine, and cooked in the oven all day long, on Mondays, when the women traditionally do the wash. Agar Lippmann (see page 258) remembers her mother in Alsace making the Sabbath stew in a baeckeoffe, using a mix of flour and water to make a kind of glue to really seal the lid. When I was having lunch at Robert and Evelyne Moos’s house in Annecy, they used a Römertopf to make a similar lamb stew for me. Eveline ceremoniously brought the dish to the table, and in front of all of us, took off the top so that we were enveloped in the steam and aromas of the finished dish.

When researching this book, I talked about Jewish food with Pierre Dreyfus, a greatgrandson of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish officer on the French General Staff who was falsely accused of being a German spy. The one recipe that Pierre remembered from his childhood was for butter, or butterkuchen, simple shortbread butter cookies sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. A century ago, butterkuchen, similar to sablés in Brittany, were made by using equal weights of eggs in their shells, butter, sugar, and flour. Sometimes cooks would add a little kirsch or vanilla sugar. Some used a glass to cut round pieces from the cookie dough; others pressed the dough into pans and cut it into tiny squares or rectangles after baking. One elderly lady I interviewed told me how her grandmother would make butter in the summer from the fresh, unpasteurized cream of their cows and store it in a stone jar on a ledge outside their house all winter long. Then, when she wanted to use the butter for butter, it was right there. One day when I was visiting Sandrine Weil (see page 181), she and her daughters showed me how to make a tender butter. This is her take on the butterkuchen, made with rich French butter, which has a low water and high fat content, and is cut after baking into the traditional 1-inch squares.

Kugelhopf, seen in every bakery in Alsace, is the regional special-occasion cake par excellence. The marvelous nineteenth-century illustration by Alphonse Lévy shows how this tea cake, which he calls baba, was also revered by the Jews of Alsace. Kugel means “ball” in German, and hopf means “cake” in Alsatian. This cake is found all over Germany, Austria, Hungary, and parts of Poland. According to food historians Philip and Mary Hyman, a Kugelhopf is first mentioned in German texts in the 1730s, where it is described as a cake baked in a mold shaped like a turban. I suspect that this cake went back and forth throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire with travelers and cooks, and possibly came back to Lorraine as baba, also a turbaned cake in its original form. Sometimes kugelhopf is raised with yeast; some later versions use baking powder. It may contain raisins, or a combination of raisins and almonds. Kugelhopf molds are as varied as the myriad recipes. You can easily find kugelhopf molds at fine kitchen-supply stores, or you can use a small-capacity Bundt pan. Be careful to watch the cake as it cooks, since baking time will vary depending on the size and material of your pan, and you do not want to let the cake dry out.

This tangy, textured potato salad is much appreciated in Liguria, and it has become a favorite of mine. I like it best served warm—when the freshly cooked potatoes have just been tossed in the hot bacon-and-mustard dressing—though it is also delicious at room temperature, on a buffet or picnic table. As the name implies (and the slightly Nordic ingredients also suggest), this salad came to Liguria from somewhere else. Though I don’t know the precise origins, the Riviera Ligure has for centuries lured writers, composers, poets, and artists from other parts of Europe. Perhaps one of these creative types made this salad during a Ligurian sojourn. Certainly I have no objection that such a tasty dish, even if introduced by an outsider, took root in Liguria and became part of the regional cuisine.