After spending a 9 days in Italy, I was lucky enough to spend my 31st birthday and the last week of my trip with family and friends in beautiful Heidelberg, Germany, one of the places I love to call home. Germany is a beautiful country with deep history, amazing architecture, beautiful countryside, and unique food and culture. I spent mytime there with my dear friend Caro, her family, and several other friends, drinking coffee, visiting, walking the cobblestone streets and checking out the shops, exploring some surrounding towns, writing about my Italy trip, and being surprised with a few birthday get togethers. One on Saturday evening, at the house and out on the town where I unfortunately drank the same amount of wine in one night that I drank during my whole trip to Italy....oops! (Still a great night, not the best morning). The second: afternoon cake and bbq with my lovely German family. And third, an indoor tapas "picnic" with friends, since the rain had put a damper on original plans of a picnic at the castle. Allwere secretly planned by meine liebe Caro and I loved and appreciated it all.
Although I didn’t do much as far as food touring and German food sampling, I did do a little bit of extra exploration. The German food experience deserves the dedication of a whole other trip. That still didn’t stop me from checking out the shops, strolling through my favorite grocery stores, or going to the open-air market. I must say I am very impressed with the quality of German food. Although they do have their fair share of processed packaged food, most of it seems to be extremely cleaner than american processed food; no chemical food coloring and minimal additives are often what I have seen. Almost all their grocery stores could probably qualify as a natural food storeand they have an extensive selection of organic (bio) products and produce. I’m not so sure a Whole Foods Market would survive in Germany because it wouldn’t really stand out from the pack as much as it does in the States.
Although the overall cuisine varies from region to region, Germany is probably most commonly known for it’s beer, bread and sausage.
Why is that when any one, including myself, thinks of German food the first thing that they think of is sausage? Is it because when you are on the train there and the snack man comes through , he is announcing “coffee? tea? wiener?”? Or is it because when you are at a German sports event the most common snack is a wiener, 4times the length of the bun it is placed in? Or is it because at the meat markets you can find an entire case of any sausage you can think of along with wieners hanging from the ceiling and walls? I’m not so sure but most likely, it is because Germany has a long tradition of sausage making and there are more than 1500 different types of sausage (wurst) in Germany. All I have to say about that is....”Gootee Warsht” or in non-becks language “Gute Wurst.”
Beer is also a major part of German culture and the country produces some of the best beers in the world. According to Wikipedia, there are approximately 1300 breweries in Germany and they produce over 5000 brands of beer. To give you a little perspective, there are around 1700 breweries in the USA and Germany is only around the size of Montana. Germany is also reputedly home to the oldest existing brewery in the world,The Benedictine abbey Weihenstephan brewery north of Munich established in 725 and brewing since 1040. I can sadly say that on this trip I only had one beer and I’m not sure Corona qualifies as local. Next time!
And Bread....awwww, bread! There seems to be a bakery on every corner with shelves and cases full of a variety of fresh breads. Germany does not only produce more varieties of bread than any other country but Germans are the biggest consumers of bread in the world.
Besides these three stereotypical German items, Germany has much to offer as far as food goes. Although it may not be my cuisine of choice, there are several foods I do enjoy especially the variety of noodles/dumplings: dampfnudeln, spätzle, an knödel and let’s also not forget mustard, the ultimate condiment.
With an extreme variety of choices, my favorite remains the mittelscharf (medium hot). Lastly, the cakes are always a delight to try. One of Germany’s most enjoyable food traditions is afternoon coffee and cake with good company, although, I’m not so sure this is something my body would probably benefit from if I got used to doing it everyday. The cake/dessert selection is unbelievable sometimes and I don’t think Icould ever get through sampling it all. Good thing I have the pleasure of knowing a special German pastry chef, my dear friend’s papa, who can tell me what’s best. Can’t wait for him to show me some more culinary skills on my next visit.
All in all, this was just a teaser intro of German food and culture. I very much look forward to a dedicated German food tour all over the country, but for now, this part of my trip in Germany was a special heartwarming time with family and friends, birthday surprises, heartfelt closeness and conversation. Tschuess und bis bald!
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