I read alot of pairings of german wines with food but it seems the wines are
never paired with german cuisine. Please expand upon this topic or tell me I've
not payed proper attention. I read this group every day and respect the
opinions of all the core people in this group.

TIA

George Cox

"Cggeorgecox" > skrev i melding
...
> I read alot of pairings of german wines with food but it seems the wines
are
> never paired with german cuisine. Please expand upon this topic or tell me
I've
> not payed proper attention. I read this group every day and respect the
> opinions of all the core people in this group.
>
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

"Anders Tørneskog" > wrote:

> The traditional beverage would be beer, of course, the Germans
> used to drink 100 litres per capita per year of beer

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

<http://www.brewers.or.jp/english/consupt2.htm>

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.

Anders Tørneskog wrote:

> 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

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.

Cggeorgecox wrote:

> I read alot of pairings of german wines with food but it seems the wines are
> never paired with german cuisine. Please expand upon this topic or tell me I've
> not payed proper attention. I read this group every day and respect the
> opinions of all the core people in this group.

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).

Bill wrote:

> Anders Tørneskog wrote:
>
>> 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
>
> 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.

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

> I read alot of pairings of german wines with food but it seems the wines are
> never paired with german cuisine. Please expand upon this topic

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.

"winemonger" in m...
> I think one of the best Austrian cookbooks is DIE GUTE KÜCHE
> by Ewald Plachutta and Christoph Wagner.

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.)

"Max Hauser" > wrote:

> 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

Standard references they are certainly. From newer times the first
impact after Bocuse's kitchen revolution really was Werner Matt's
& Walter Glocker's "Erlesenes aus Österreichs Küche". Then all
other prominent chefs came with their version of Austrian haute
cuisine: Lisl Wagner-Bacher's "Meine Küche", Reinhard Gerer's
"Große Küche", the Obauer brothers etc.

> 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.

In Germany the equivalent would be Richard Hering's "Lexikon der
Küche". The only reference to this author I ever found was that he
was "Küchendirektor im Hotel Metropol" in Vienna between the wars.
It's quite probable that he was Austrian (as the first chef
outside France and Belgium ever earning three Michelin stars war
Austrian: Eckart Witzigman, the then proprietor and chef de
cuisine of restaurant "Aubergine" in Munich, Bavaria, Germany).

The hotel, however, had a very ill fate: Expropriated 1938 by the
nazis, it gained sad stardom as gestapo headquarter. Bombed during
WW II, it was never reconstructed.

M.

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

Dale Williams
Drop "damnspam" to reply

Dale Williams wrote:
> 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.

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.

>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