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

They still drink well over 100 litres a year. These figures are some four years old

but tendencies are quite the same. What striked me most: Ireland is an unfought number 2 after the Czech Republic (their number one status has been unmatched for ages), and that Austria is number four worldwide! (Of course that has to do with tourism, but still.)

M.

In the southern part of Germany it seems to be 99% of meals are accompanied with beer. Wine seems to be a before and after drink and in bars. In northern Germany where seafood is more prevalent, you do see wine on the table during meals but certainly not in any majority. I have never seen a bottle of red German wine on a restaurant table.

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).

Hello Bill,

i live in the southern part of germany. You mean Bavaria. In Bavaria is beer their favourite drink. In Baden Würrtemberg, where i live, is it usual to accompanie wine with most of the meals, but mostly in higher class restaurants.

regards Michael

There are some aspects of the Austrian kitchen which are similar to German cuisine, and here I have found many great pairings. In the traditional Heuriger, cold foods are served (think cold cuts, leberkäse, sausages and the like) alongside fresh white wines or wines mixed with mineral water (spritzer) This is probably more a case of two traditions that work well together, and not so much a master plan of exquisite food/wine pairing, but the end result is good. I did once have a traditional Pannonian soup (white beans & sausage) with a glass of Blaufränkisch which, on that particular cold day, seemed a match of divine inspiration.

I think one of the best Austrian cookbooks is DIE GUTE KÜCHE by Ewald Plachutta and Christoph Wagner.

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This is Herr P's territory, but if I as a foreigner may suggest a few others, focusing in some cases on the distinctive cuisine of Vienna:

Hess's _Wiener Küche_ is something of a standard; popular also are _Das Franz Ruhm Kochbuch_ and Rokitansky's _Österreichische Küche._

Written specifically for anglophone audiences by a British Austrian expat, Gretel Beer's _Austrian Cooking_ (1954) is perennially in print and I have seen it for sale in various counries; I have three copies from different printings, and it's surely one of the most successful cookbooks internationally on the subject (I remember in the 1990s reading about Ms Beer receiving an honor in Austria associated with this; the article was in Herr P's magazine.) Rosl Philpot's _Viennese Cookery_ (1965) has comparable origins and serves the same market but is less well known.

Karl Duch's trilingual _Hand-Lexikon der Koch-Kunst_ (German, French, English) is the professional-reference "national" cooking handbook, roughly the parallel of Escoffier, Molokhovets, or Mrs Beeton in their respective coutries, for example.

I have found utility in all of these books, they are the ones I consult most often for recipes of that particular region.

Max Hauser

How could I have forgotten in my previous suggestions the unique

_Nur Knödel_ (Helmreich and Staudinger, Vienna: Verlag Christian Brandstätter, 1993, ISBN 3854474350). This joyful bilingual volume (parallel German and English on facing pages) in coffee-table format treats, if I may try a phrase for it, dumpling culture. Austria, Bavaria, and Bohemia developed dumplingoid specialties to an art (if not a fine art, a satisfying one) whose spirit emerges in recipes interspersed with stylish monochrome photos and tongue-in-cheek philosophy ("Is the dumpling a Catholic phenomenon?").

Also I should cite Christoph Wagner's history and examination of fast food, _Fast schon Food_ (Campus, 1995, ISBN 3593353466). It has spirit as well as relevance. "Nicht erst die New Yorker Yuppies entdecken die Sushi-Bars," reveals illustration 24 for example, showing Charlie Chaplin hanging out at one in the 1930s. It was Wagner, the food journalist and scholar, who told me in 1996 of a symphonic body that served period dinners to match its music, and consulted him for historical accuracy. Concern attended serving potatoes for a composer predating their supposed appearance. Wagner described with satisfaction having proved conclusively that potatoes were in appropriate use, sufficiently long before Parmentier. QED. (I won't mention here who it was that referred me emphatically, and very appropriately, to Wagner.)

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