German Wines and German Food

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It is an interesting question, really. The traditional beverage would be beer, of course, the Germans used to drink 100 litres per capita per year of beer and most dishes of the normally undistinguished cuisine used to be heavy peasant stuff (now I'm generalizing, of course) most suited for beer. The rush of oversweet simple whites after WWII seemed to be used for sipping, not for serious food accompaniment (hey, Michael - you're the sommelier here, am I right about the 50'ies? (and 60/70'ies?)) Nowadays, with a somewhat greater sophistication around, quite many food-friendly drier wines are being made (I'm still speaking of whites) - and the reds that used to be unimpressive or even sweet often show good substance and concentration. Food habits have become more internationalized, like most other places, and you can therefore find good pairings of modern German wine and modern German cooking. The wine-making areas on the other hand seem to have developed their own cuisine variations that go well with the local wine. In Mosel you will often find only white wine in restaurants even with beef, venison or boar - but given the infinite variations available you can always find something surprisingly suitable :-) Anders

In my travels through the Rheinhessen, I've mostly seen wine drunk as an apperitif. However, there is a long-standing tradition in Frankfurt of consuming "Rippchen mit Kraut" (braised pork ribs with sauerkraut) with a local apple wine. I've tried it with Riesling and it's not a half-bad match, though hardly standard.

Mark Lipton

In the twelve years I lived and drank in Germany, wine was only common with meals in the heart of winegrowing regions. Even in these regions, it was most common in "weinstuebe" settings with cheese, snails, and other light fare. In nearly all cases, the wine served was white, mostly riesling or muller-thurgau. This is not to say that wine wasn't available elsewhere, but that beer was by far the preferred beverage (in such nonwinegrowing locals, wine drinkers were mostly ladies).

The only place I'd ever see red German wine served was in Baden (southwest Germany) as its microclimate was somewhat suited to Spatburgunder (Pinot Noir). It was, however, somewhat of a novelty. Of course, I should not fail to mention many drunken evenings in Frankfurt as a result of overindulgence in Apfelwein accompanying a monstrous Schweinshaxe (roast pork shanks).

To the original poster, I'm a big drinker of German wines, but with the exception of some wursts on the grill in the summer, we don't eat a lot of German food. I LOVE good German food, but it's not heavy in my wife repetoire. And the German restaurants in NY are mostly not up to the standards of the better places for other cuisines.

Maybe I'll try to find Betsy a good German cookbook for Mother's Day.

As we've veered off into Austrian cookbooks, has anyone tried David Bouley's "East of Paris"? Not pure Austrian, more fusion. I thought of this as a gift for Betsy (I loved my one meal each at Danube and the original Bouley); but a description of the labor-intensive recipes scared me off (Betsy WILL do these multi-hour procedures, I prefer her to spend less time cooking and more with me!).

Dale

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It is rather amazing that in 1890 there were more German restaurants than all other foreign restaurants combined here in the US. Now it is practically impossible to find German restaurants even in large cities.

German and Eastern European cooking ar not in vogue these days. Too bad. There is a good (to my rather limited knowledge) German restaurant in Granby, CO (near Winter Park). They serve good German food and did serve what appeared to be authentic vegetables. I believe the owners are from Frankfurt. But the ski crowd must not have liked the vegetables, because they switched to a salad bar. How boring.

Tom Schellberg