Food in Germany, and Beer

Backyard cookout

The last two entries were about by our adventures on the Neckar River and biking, and this is all about food.  As I am our household’s chef, this is a daily topic for me.  Two weekends ago we had a cookout in our back yard.  We bought a €8- grill (~$10).

After the meal we made s’mores --yes, marshmallows are available here.  However most food that claims to be American are generally bad.  For example "MCENNEDY American Way" marshmallows, "Barney’s Best" peanut butter with their kitschy statue of liberty and stars & stripes inspired packaging, are worse than their worst quality counterparts in the US.  …although the caramel popcorn is good; it is a much lighter caramel coating, than the US version.

Party at our apartment; pulled pork was the menu

A month ago we made 3kg of pulled pork, from the spices Gabe sent us.  One of the highlights was to go to a butcher and order the specific cut.  We cooked it all night, and served it to a few friends.  For all the pork in this country, it is surprising that pulled pork is not more common.

The grocery stores have a strong bias toward local and seasonal fruits.  It has been fun to eat our way through the summer.  Last week I made a wild plumb reduction to serve with pork chops.  Then this week, we had left over sauce with roasted pumpkin.  We bought the pumpkin at an honor-system roadside stand –put money in the box, take the produce home.

Nearly all Americans believe that Germany has the best beer in the world.  This is not true.  The “best beer in the world” is very subjective.  Germany’s beer is for the most part still governed by the “Reinheitsgebot” i.e. Bavarian/German Beer Purity Law, which is from around 1500AD.  This makes German beer very consistent, as they are only allowed to use water, barley, and hops (original law was 300 years before Pasteur, so yeast was added to the law later).  Even the wheat beer, which is not governed by Reinheitsgebot's ingredients list is very consistent.  It is very hard to find diversity in German beer.  While Belgium, England-Scotland-Ireland, and the US (the thousands of microbrewers, not the few mega brewers) have a wide variety which can better satisfy most tastes.  We really miss IPAs and porters.

Besides beer there are lots of schnapps and Most (apple wine, often served at seasonally opened restaurants), but these are not much better than garage experiments in brewing.  But it must say that when someone gets tired of all the alcohol, it seems that every brewery also has an alcohol-free beer.