Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks. Today we're going to talk about German cuisine.
Of our motherland, but my motherland, a little bit your motherland also.
Yeah, my fatherland.
I think it's a very underappreciated cuisine, I mean, not just around the world, but also inside
of Germany. I feel like a lot of people have kind of lost what German food really is, you know? I
mean, like everybody knows the like really basic stuff like sausages and whatnot, but they forget
that it's actually a very, you know, just as much as a complex food culture as, you know, other food
cultures around the world. Yeah, it doesn't have the reputation at all that you will find in
countries like France, Italy, or Spain, not by far, you know? Or even, I would say even the other
German countries like Austria and Switzerland have a much better reputation when it comes to food.
No, definitely. Yeah, I mean, definitely, I would have to say that, you know, I mean,
like obviously Germany is very regional, also the north is very different to the south, but in general,
South Germany is a bit better known for good cooking, you know?
Yeah, like also the great chefs from Germany are from that region, I would say, like at least
Witzigmann and Bohlfart, you know, who are like the godfathers of German cuisine.
Yes, definitely. Yeah. So I mean, like, what's German food like for you? If you think of German
food, what do you think of? You know, my father is German, and I was raised with very German things
at home. Like, for instance, we were living in Venezuela, but we wouldn't eat arepas or
Venezuelan food for breakfast. We would have like mother dough bread, like a sauer type bread with
liverwurst, which is basically the German liver pate. We would use to snack maybe with some
radishes or mustard or jerrycans, you know, this kind of like home kind of best. And that's pretty
German for me. One of my super deep childhood memories is a Kartoffelpuffer, which is basically
grated potatoes that you turn into sort of like a pancake with apple puree. And for me, that's also
super German. It's super German. Yeah, I mean, like a Kartoffelpuffer is a great example, because
I don't think there's a lot of countries where you eat potatoes sweet. And like for me, you know,
like a sweet potato cake with cinnamon and apple compote. I don't think there's anywhere else. And
I've seen that sort of thing. It's really, really authentically German, I would say. And like also
what you say, you know, German bread is a, you know, as part of the UNESCO World Heritage. Yeah,
I know it's the most diverse country when it comes to bread, sausages and beer. Yeah, yeah. And like
those sorts of things that they really held in high regards, like these crafts, if you go into a
bakery, you know, everybody knows what good bread should be like, you know, they have like very,
very specific standards, or any way they should, and they used to, we had a bit of a dip, and
now bakeries are getting much better again. But especially in whole wheat, like there's so much
more bread that is whole wheat with whole seeds and ancient grains like dinkle, which is spelt
and those sorts of things. Yeah, also Pompaneke, which is like, it's some category of bread. Yeah,
yeah, definitely. And I mean, like also, like you were saying, butchery, you know, like if you go
into a good butcher shop in Germany, everything's made in-house and you just have like a huge variety
of sausages, both like dried and fresh and like different hams, huge selection of meat, but also
things like just butchery made things, like there's a thing in Germany called sausage salad,
Wurstsalat. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, or Fleischsalat, you know, which is like sausages cut up into
strips and like mixed into a sort of like creamy salad. And when it's done, like nicely, it's really
nice, but it's like really strange, but really nice at the same time. Yeah, I have super nice
memories of going to breweries in the south, in Stuttgart. Today, you have like all this hype
around microbreweries, but this is like the same thing, just like it has always been there. It's
something like it's probably a couple of hundred years old and they all have the same menu. The
beer is like industrial beer. There's nothing exciting about it, like in the way you will find
like in microbreweries. But then you have all this variation of potato salads with different
forms of doing it. Like some are more creamy and with mayo, others are not at all. They're just with
roasted butter and some vegetables. Yeah, I love this like brewery food culture. I really, really
love it, you know, especially in like the south, you know, like the Weria and Hessen and Franken,
you know, areas that are close to the Alps and like close to France. I think it's amazing, like
especially in summer, like people sitting outside in the garden underneath the trees in the fresh
air drinking beer from a local brewery and just eating like really good, simple, hearty food.
Now potato salad is a really good subject because there's like really like what I would consider
like normal potato salads in Germany, like mayonnaise based. But there's like a couple
of ways of making potato salads that are really cool. I mean, you know the recipe of using beef
stock for making the dressing of potato salad? Yeah, I think I saw that in a Schubert cookbook.
Yeah, that's really cool. It's super cool. Like you pour warm beef broth,
cut with vinegar onto recently boiled and peeled potatoes and you let it kind of macerate and the
beef stock will thicken slightly and glaze the potatoes and form like a clear dressing,
making it like really savory, really meaty. I actually did that or something really similar
just two days ago for New Year's Eve, but it was not a potato salad, but it was like that kind of
technique just because it was like, well, it was what I had at hand at the moment. Yeah. I would
say my favorite super ultra German dish would be Weißbrust with sweet mustard. Yeah. Like this
white sausage that you usually get in its own China that is this dish where it comes with its
boiling water and then you usually peel it with your fork and spoon or whatever and you eat it
with a sweet mustard. And this sausage for me, it has such a fine flavor and it has like this lemony
quality to it. I love it. That's one of my favorite things. Yeah. That's really cool. Actually,
I never thought of it having like a lemony aspect, but that's really interesting. It's like, yeah,
I think like the mustard and stuff, like the flavor profile in general is really unique.
I mean, mustard in general, like in Germany, it's like you go to a, like for example, in the UK,
you go to the supermarket and you find English mustard. It's one type of mustard, right? English
mustard. And then you get French mustard like Dijon. That's it. Here in Germany, you go to
like a normal supermarket and you find like five, six different types of German mustard,
different spice levels. You know, some are really mild, some are really extremely spicy,
almost like wasabi. Yeah. And then some are, you know, whole grain fermented whole or like,
and some are sweet, you know, and it's super, super nice. Actually, I prefer like the Dijon
style, but spicy German mustard. I think it's much better than the Dijon mustard itself, or at least
it's a, you're so used to see the Dijon mustard all over that this is something different and it's a
perfect replacement and you will get like a different note to it. Totally. But I was saying
the lemon equality to the sausage, not to the mustard. Yeah. Yeah. To the Weisswurst. Yeah.
Yeah. Then you have all this universe of the English translation is dumpling, but it's like
its own thing. It's like this dough balls of different things. Yeah. It's really interesting.
It's really highly regional also, you know, these dumplings, either you call them Knudel or you call
them Klöße, but they're usually always round. And it's like a general term for several, like very
different, for example, Kartoffelklöße, which are potato dumplings. And even in that region,
there's like completely different ones. And again, there's techniques that are very, very interesting,
like from a chef's point of view, for example, the half and half dumpling, you know, where you make
the dumpling dough out of half a part of boiled potatoes and half a part of raw potatoes. Ah,
yeah. Yeah. I've seen that. Yeah. And it's actually fairly difficult to pull off properly. But if you
do it right, you have some boiled potatoes that you pass through kind of like you would with gnocchi.
And then you take raw potatoes and finely grate them. And then you press the water out and mix
the raw potatoes into the cooked potatoes. But then the water you let settle and you let the
starch settle at the bottom. And then you pour the water away and you use the starch of the potatoes
to bind the dough of the dumplings. So then what you get is, you know, because otherwise, if you
would just make a potato dough, you'd get something like gnocchi. But because you use the starch,
you get a much more sort of bouncy elastic texture. And I like for me, that's super interesting and
super delicious. Yeah. All this culture of game, which is also super cool, like cooking with deer,
more like in the south. I always imagine these dishes that go with some kind of noodle or
krosse, some boiled red cabbage, and it's all sauce. That's like a super straightforward German dish
for me. Yeah, definitely. But like, for example, the red cabbage, like for me, is also really
iconically German. It's like braised red cabbage. But like the way that you make it is also very
interesting because it's kind of like sweet and sour, you know? Yeah. I see that I doing all kind
of things to that cabbage, like putting cloves, cinnamon, molasses, sugars, whatever. Yeah,
it's, it's a... Yeah, definitely. I don't properly. It's super nice. I sometimes I like to take an
apple and like grate it into the mix when I'm cooking it. Yeah. And for example, my dad,
he is very proud of his vodka recipe, and he marinades it for two days before he cooks it.
So he shreds the cabbage raw, and then he marinades it with red wine and bay leaf and like, like you
say, cloves and stuff like that. Then he marinades it for two days, and then only starts cooking it
down slowly. It's super delicious. Yeah, the profile direction is like kind of like a glue wine,
like red wine and spices. You want to bring it to that direction somehow? Yeah, definitely. But you
know, like a lot of German cooking, I kind of like for people who really like have no idea what
German like countryside food is like, for me, it's like very similar to some of like northern
French cooking, like just really local ingredient-driven rustic country cooking. Like one of my favorite
dishes that's also from the area, very traditional in the area where my family's from is Tafel
Spitz. Is it Austrian or German? I mean, for me, it's German because like for me, the Frankfurt area,
like in Hessen, that's like the traditional dish there, the most traditional. It's like a boiled
piece of beef, right? Like in a very strong consomme, and it's cooked inside of it with
some vegetables, right? Something like that. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So a lot of the times,
it's kind of like a pot au feu a little bit, you know. You take a beef brisket and you like,
you don't roast it, you don't sear it, and you pack it into a pot with whole vegetables, you know,
carrots, celery, leek or whatever. And then you just poach it really, really gently until the meat is
super tender. And then you take the meat out, you slice it thinly. And then often you serve it with
the broth and some of the cooked vegetables that we're poaching in the beef broth. And it's really
delicate and really delicious. You often also eat it with a side of a horseradish sauce, raw
horseradish grated mixed with a little bit of like sour cream. And, you know, it's super nice, you
know, and it's not something that people usually think of when they think of German cooking.
In general, I think these like consomme dishes, they're actually really, really German and
Austrian, like Fledle. You know, Fledle are like noodles that are made from savory pancakes,
basically. You make these like savory pancakes, roll them up finely.
Ah, yeah.
And cut them really thinly.
Yeah, yeah.
And you get them served in a similar dish, in like these soup dishes that you get the
white sausage in also with the lions on the side.
Yeah, that's super German.
Yeah, these like old royal dishes. And yeah, I mean, these like really intense
broths, like for me are also really, really German. Yeah, this completely transports me to
like some Prussian palace in Brandenburg.
Totally.
You also have all this universe of German pastas. You just mentioned this like strips of like crepes
kind of, but you also have Spätzle. I would say it's the most iconic German pasta. And how would
you describe it? It's like a dirty pasta, you know, shape-wise.
Well, depends how you make it, I would say. I mean, you can find the beauty in their imperfection,
I think.
Absolutely. But these are like drops of pasta dough that are randomly fall into the water with
these organic shapes, right? Like how would you describe it?
Well, yeah, kind of, you know, yeah, you kind of actually like so I, for me, there's like two
different types of making them, you know, there's like the type that you describe, and then there's
a type where you kind of cut them. But like, it's interesting, because the Spätzle dough is very liquid.
So it's a very simple dough, actually, but it is very liquid. Like, it's not really a dough,
it's like a paste, right? So you wouldn't be able to roll it, you wouldn't be able to shape it,
nothing like that. And it's famously made by beating the dough with your flat hand. So you
kind of hit the dough and pull it. And while pulling your hand back, you pull the dough also,
because it sticks to your hand. And you do that. And like that, you stretch the gluten. And also,
you introduce air into the dough. You remember once, and then this restaurant where we worked,
where the chef came to make us a demo on how to do exactly that. Yeah. And he was like, yeah,
you put your hand in there and you have to do it like this. Too sour, too sour, too sour.
How would you describe too sour? Basically, he was calling the dough a dirty pig while he was spanking
it. That guy was a beast. I mean, he could really cook. You have to give him that. Yeah, for sure.
But traditionally, you're meant to beat the dough until it bubbles by itself. And that takes quite
a lot of effort. But that's really only to build the gluten. And then so there's the way to do it.
Like you described it, where you, for example, you put it in like a potato press, like a potato
ricer. And then you press it through the holes into a boiling pot of water, well, like simmering pot
of water. And that's kind of like the easy way to do it. But most normal way is that you take a pot
of water, you fill it up to the very brim, to the very top, and you get it to like a simmering quality.
And then you take a wooden board, and you put this like wet dough on the wooden board, and you spread
it flat onto this wooden board. And then you dip the very end of the board into the water with a
spatula or knife that you wet in the hot water, you go to the edge of the dough, and you very,
very thinly start shaving the dough into the water, kind of cutting the dough. And because of the hot
water, you always like keeping a spatula or your knife wet, and you kind of like pushing the dough
back. So you have like a very, very thin layer on the front. And as you knead, you move more dough
into the front. It's kind of like kind of similar to a Chinese method where they shave the noodles
into the water, you know. And if you can do it well, you get these very thin, slightly irregular
strips of noodles. And yeah, those are basically Spätzle. And what is your favorite thing to eat
Spätzle with? Honestly, goulash is a very good thing to have with Spätzle. Yeah, I would say
definitely. On one side, I would say Käse Spätzle, which literally just means cheese Spätzle,
which is an alpine specialty of these Spätzle noodles with caramelized onions and gratinated
with mountain cheese. Mountain cheese literally is called mountain cheese. It's a specific type
of alpine cheese that's made in caves in the Alps. And it's very salty, savory-ish. That's
really nice. But yeah, I mean, Spätzle together with the goulash, like a meat-based stew,
is perfect for me, like so tasty. And also goulash, this is another thing that, well,
the father-in-law of my father was Hungarian. So goulash was also among the key recipes for my
dad. But for me, goulash is something German as well. I mean, Hungary and Austria were the same
country at some moment, German speaking. So, and this is also something you will find in any German
restaurant, quite commonly all over Germany. And it's also such a simple thing to cook,
for me, goulash is basically lots of onions and beef and just letting it cook with some
very high quality paprika, not much more. Yeah, exactly. The one that you're describing is
this actually a very interesting one, which we call Segedine goulash with, like you say,
like a really high quality paprika and often the addition of sauerkraut, which we actually haven't
talked about, you know, the fermented cabbage, the Schuckrute. Yeah, which is probably one of the
most iconic German recipes, sauerkraut, of course. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It's eaten with so many
things now. And yeah, I mean, that's super, super delicious. And it's like earlier, you mentioned
the game culture, you know, here in Germany, we have Germany is, or used to be, but still is largely
covered by forests. And we have a lot of game in this country, mainly deer, so venison and wild
boar. And apart from beef, those are also things that people cook like goulash quite a lot. And
yeah, it's super nice for me also. It's like, yeah, sure. I think like originally it's Hungarian,
but for me it's quintessential goulash. It's such a comfort food, you know? Yeah. Another super cool
German dish for me, it's Kaisersmand. Yes. Which it's kind of like, I would describe it kind of like
a pancake soufflé. That's exactly how I would describe it. Yeah. It's like a pancake soufflé,
and you break it. You cook it in the pan, you put like the whole pan to the oven, and then you break
it with like a fork and spoon, right? So like this irregular pancake pieces in your pan, and then you
put whatever on top, like some fruits or some ice cream or whatever you want to eat it with.
Well, well, well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. You can't put anything on top.
Yeah. So I mean, this is like, this is actually one of the dishes where you can definitely say
that's definitely Austrian, you know? It's very, very Austrian. Kaisersmand, Kaisers,
Kaisers is like the emperor. Yes. And Schmand is? Schmand is several things. So Schmand on one side
is like a sour cream, but that has nothing to do with it. Schmand is something that is a term that
often gets used in the Austrian slang for nonsense. And so the story is that the royal chef was
supposed to come out with a new dessert for the emperor, and he was going to make this like pancake
soufflé, but he fucked it up while flipping it or something. And so he decided to improvise,
and he decided to rip the whole thing up into small pieces and then put it back into the oven
with a little bit of butter and stuff so the pieces would crisp up a bit and then serve it.
And when he served it to the emperor, supposedly the emperor looked at it and said,
wasn't das für ein Schmarrn? Yeah, which means what kind of nonsense is this? This ripped up pancake.
But he ended up really liking it. So and now it's a classic of Austrian cuisine. Yeah.
Yeah, it's a super nice dessert. Yeah, and it's so original, you know, because it's like a broken
soufflé. Yeah. And it sounds very simple. It's kind of like, oh, you make a pancake, you rip it up,
but it's actually not that easy because if you had a really properly made Kaiserschmand, you realize
that there's quite a lot to it and then you try to make it at home. And it's definitely kind of like
a tortilla. You have to get the right technique and you have to get the right consistency. It's
very simple, but you have to kind of nail it. Yeah. For me, my two favorite German products are
strawberries and white asparagus. Strawberries, there is this thing with strawberries because
they're original from America, but the original American strawberries have nothing to do with
German strawberries. They got like with whatever, with breeding techniques and this kind of thing,
they got this variety that man, when it's in season, it's something so nice and so special.
I haven't had anything similar or nowhere else. Yeah, absolutely. I can totally agree with you.
Actually, I haven't really thought about that, but now that I'm thinking about it,
you're totally right. They are really exceptionally delicious. The only place that I had similar
strawberries was in Denmark and were similar climates. But I mean, yeah, in Denmark, you know,
it's a seasonal delicacy also. But yeah, white asparagus, also very interesting. There's not
really anywhere else, but like Germany and France, that white asparagus is actually a thing.
Everywhere around the world that I go, everybody's crazy about green asparagus.
No, here, here, across country as well. But here they're usually eaten preserved, like canned.
Exactly. It's like, why? They're like a delicacy and everything. But I mean,
the German asparagus for me are the best. The bayleets, the asparagus, they're fucking amazing.
Yeah. And it's such a beautiful thing because it's such a hyper seasonal ingredient and it gets
celebrated in such a nice way. I really wish that like a lot of other things were celebrated in the
same fashion because come like late spring and asparagus is in season. That's all people eat.
That's all restaurants offer. I mean, not all, but everybody has it all and everybody's excited for
it. And you eat it in such a simple way. Yeah. You know, boiled with a few more things and that's it,
you know, they, they, they, they doesn't need much. It gets poached a little bit. You eat it
with some new potatoes, maybe some clarified butter, maybe some poached ham on the side and
hollandaise. Hollandaise, very common. Yeah. Something like that out of the skin of the
asparagus, the skin is very, very fragrant. So often with the skin, you make a broth,
an asparagus broth, and then with the offcuts of the asparagus, you make an asparagus cream soup.
And it's just super tasty. And, and I love this like simple ingredient driven cooking, you know.
You mentioned Eckart Witzigman. Yeah. For me, he is one of the most relevant chefs,
not only in Germany, but in Europe. I think that this is someone who was really ahead of its time.
If you take old cookbooks and you look at what he was doing at Aubergine, his restaurant in the
early nineties, I mean, those dishes could be served today in a restaurant. They would look
kind of like vintage, but still something you could serve. They were really ahead of its time.
I remember also working, this is a guy who has written an amazing large amount of cookbooks and
culinary books. And I remember these are always good go-to books because the recipes always worked
pretty well. I also did this Kaiserschmann recipe from one of his pastry books, but also many other
recipes. And they would have like this, you know, this twist, this sophistication of things,
like techniques that you haven't seen nowhere else, but were like pretty French, pretty classic,
but uncommon and then just small variations. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I totally agree with you.
Yeah. He, he really drove it forward. And I think like what made him so special for me is that is
exactly what you just said, is that when you look at his recipes and when you look at his dishes,
they're built on a super solid foundation of cooking, of like traditional, you know,
provincial cooking, and then adding a little bit of refinement and adding like a little bit of a
twist. And I think that's what made him really, really good. And also he really celebrated like
his heritage and where he was from. And, and yeah, he, he made it really enjoyable.
Yeah. Or also taking, you know, recipes that in its traditional versions, you will find like super
overcooked or astute like deer or venison of these kinds of things. And he would serve it
just cooked to perfection, you know, red on the core, these kinds of things, early nineties,
without sous vide techniques or anything, or just making like a venison tartare, you know,
like just like that, taking like super German flavors and ingredients and just twisting,
making something new and more refined out of it. Yeah. I love that guy.
What other German chefs are there? Schuhweg, he's like this famous TV chef with traditional
German recipes. I'm not such a big fan of him. I just wanted to mention him because, you know,
he's going to jail for tax evasion. Yeah, I saw that. I mean, he had it coming now.
Oh, he did. Come on. Everybody knew. I mean, I think I like Hans Haas, who's actually also
Austrian. He was the head chef in Tantris together with Eckhard Witzigmann for a huge
amount of years. Like, I don't want to lie, but I think it was at least 20 years that he was head
chef there when he's an icon. Yeah. Yeah. I really, I really like him as well. Yeah. Well,
like Witzigmann was head chef there before him. And then he was chef afterwards, like for 20
years, something like that. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Then I really like Harald Wohlfahrt, who used to
be the head chef at Traubetonbach for a long time. It was one of the biggest three-million-star chef
restaurants in the country that also cooked very, very classic. Yeah. And probably the chef with
the longest time holding three stars from all that we've mentioned, the guy probably had like
for a long, like 20 years, something like that. Yeah. 20, 30 years. Yeah. For me, those are the
biggest names. Like if we were talking about like Kassigall, yeah, Dieter Müller could also be on
that list, but for me, Witzigmann is the greatest. Yeah, definitely. I mean, especially talking about,
you know, there's other like great chefs that do like very modern sort of things with their own
identities, but yeah, Witzigmann is definitely with by far the OG. Yeah. He's really someone,
because everybody built on his work. Like he traveled to France in the seventies and came back
at Tantris. And while he was head chef there, he started doing this renewal of German cuisine
that holds up until today, I would say. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a shame that
there's only really chefs in the like very high Michelin star end that like we can talk about,
because one thing that's missing in Germany is more people being comfortable in the like mid-range
of just cooking, you know, very solid food. That's not avant-garde, that's not Michelin star,
that's just really, really good cooked food, you know, with a very local identity. I think
that's really missing. And I think there's been a resurgence of that, especially, you know, in
south of Germany and in places like Berlin, there's a lot of chefs that are now much more
comfortable cooking local food and putting the label of it saying like, yeah, this is German
food. What's your favorite ultra traditional German restaurant in Berlin? Well, mine is one called
Ständige Vertretung near Friedrichstrasse. If it's still open, you know, like with all this COVID
thing, you never know which one's closed or in which one survived. But yeah, this is a typical
place where you will go to have your ice bind with Sauerkraut and the whole super German
menu. Yeah, it's a really good one. Oh, that sounds pretty good. I have to check it out. I haven't
been there yet. And I actually, I have a craving like once a month of going to like a super German
place, drinking a big pint of beer and just having the like Wurzhaus experience. One restaurant that
I really like, it is also a Michelin star restaurant, but the chef, he does really draw on his
southern and Austrian roots and that's restaurant Horvath. I wonder, I wonder just before leaving
Berlin, that was like my farewell dinner from Berlin. How was it? Super nice. He was, yeah,
he's doing like this new Alpine cooking that, yeah, that I wouldn't relate it to super traditional
dishes, but the super traditional flavors and ingredients from the region. Yeah, I'm a big fan
of that, I think. And he's, you know, he's really a chef's chef, I think, because he really, it's
really solid cooking, you know, there's no smoke and mirrors, it's no pretentiousness, everything's
super refined. I mean, he's got two Michelin stars now, you know, he is playing with the big boys.
Yeah, he had them back then as well, just fresh. Yeah, and but you know, it's just like solid
cooking and delicious food and I think that's really great. Cool. I think that's another episode.
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