When
people think about Germany, the type of food that most likely immediately comes to mind is sausages with beer.
They may be right, since there are more than 1,500
types of sausages, like those of Frankfurt (smoother),
Nuremberg (roasted), and Bavaria (white). But the German
gastronomy offers other possibilities, like smoked fish,
chucrut, the Maguncia cheeses, cakes (especially the
famous, apple strüdel), and the varied recipes of
the zone of the Sarre, that combine the German kitchen
with dishes of French origin. German food is characteristical
by its strong taste and caloric content. Some outstanding
foods are smoked pork chops, cabbage leaves stuffed with
pricked meat, and small fillets made of minced meat called
frikadellen.
In any case, the gastronomical tastes vary according to
the region. In Berlin, typically plates the eels, the
sturgeon, cooked pig hands and, of course, the different
potato and meatballs salads can be found. The city of Frankfurt has
different sausages varieties to offer, smoked pork with
chucrut, cheese with crude onions decorated with oil and
vinegar and the famous frankfurter kranz and Bethmämchen
pies.
The fame of German wines is well deserved. The more
important vineyard areas are those near to the Rhin and
Mosela rivers. If the harvest of the year has produced quality
wine, it´s indicated in the bottles with the word
"naturrein", natural, whereas if the harvest
has not been too good and is necessary to add sugar to
the wine, it´s indicated with the word "verbessert",
improved. Five German wine classes can be distinguished:
kabimett, of high quality, spätlese, dry and fruity,
auslese, dry, beerenauslese, sweet and very refined and
trockenbeerenauslese, a strange variety with a lot of sugar
and very expensive.
But as we said before, when people think of Germany, they think beer. It´s the most popular drink and there
is no city that does not have its own distillery. There
are several types, but the most popular are altbier
(bitter and with high content of lupulus), malzbier (dark,
sweet and with low alcohol content), and the märzen,
starkbier, to bockbier and doppelbock types, all of them
with a high malt content.
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