Food: Part I
The time has come to talk about food. I would like to give you all a thoughtful account of the specialties and the distinguishing qualities of Thuringian food. There is so much one might say on that topic. The towns and regions of Germany have long histories with distinct traditions that go back hundreds of years. Each town has its own beers. With the exception of the major exports like Becks and Warsteiner, the local stores only carry Thuringian beers. Were are only a few hours from Munich, and yet its pretty hard to find the beers I used to drink there.
Each little valley and town has its own culinary tradition. You can find wurst most everywhere, but there seem to be more varieties of wurst than there are permutations on pig, cow, chicken, intestines, ribs, liver, etc.
It's also interesting to note how much of German cuisine bears indication of its origin in a time before refrigeration and rapid transportation. In particular, this can be seen in the seemingly infinite ways the Germans have for preparing vegetables with vinegar.
There is much that I could say along these lines. One day, hopefully, I'll be able to say a lot more about history, geography, and cuisine. For the moment, though, I'm going to talk about food in less elevated terms. about Aldi and our hot plates.
In the picture above you can see our kitchen. I took this picture from the same spot that I took the picture of the entertainment center for the first blog entry. If you consider these two pictures together, you will get a sense of the size of our living area. At the moment we don't have a table. When we get one, it will probably sit to the left in the foreground of this picture.
This isn't just our kitchen. This is our "built-in" kitchen. Upon arriving here, we learned that most apartments (more than 90%, I would guess) come without a kitchen. Not just without appliances, but without a kitchen. That means no fridge, no oven, no sink, no cabinets. Most apartments come with an empty room or wall, a space where a kitchen may be placed. Then you have to go to the kitchen store. They have whole stores with nothing but kitchens in them. The kitchens sell 2,000 Euros or more. Needless to say, this was a moving expense we had not expected. Add this to cost of furnishing an apartment, and you have one big problem for our credit cards.
Thankfully, we found a furnished apartment with a built in kitchen. That's the good news about the kitchen. The bad news you can see for yourself. We plan on getting rid of the microwave, but at the moment we have just enough counter space for a cutting board. We don't have an oven, though we do have two "burners" -- glorified hot plates, really. As you might guess, our lack of an oven limits our cooking options. Last week I looked online to find traditional Thuringian recipes. I found a number of interesting looking recipes, all of which required an oven.
We face other challenges in our attempts to cook, many of which have to do with the size of most groceries stores in the city and the selection they offer. I'll talk about the grocery stores -- and the almost daily ritual of grocery shopping -- on another day. The grocery stores deserve a day of there own.
I'll close with a brief inventory and explanation of the contents of our fridge. On the bottom level you see two bottles of sparkling water, a cucumber, a basket of carrots, and colored peppers. The sparkling water is cheap and good. About three times a week I carry a package with six 1.5L bottles seven blocks from the store to our apartment. The produce is also remarkably cheap. I suspect subsidies. In particular, the colored peppers are cheap. At home they usually cost $3.99 a pound for red, yellow, or orange. Here we pay about two dollars for a package with a green, a red, and a yellow pepper. With all of these vegetables we make salad almost every night.
On the next shelf you can see jam (for Dolores' breakfast), mushrooms, and a half-empty package of saurkraut. On the next shelf you can see broccoli, which we ate this evening, a head of lettuce, and a few packages of salami. On the top shelf we have Gouda cheese and eggs. In the door there is milk in a box, orange juice in a similar box, plain yogurt for muesli, and a bottle of some sparkling fruit juice (no sugar or artificial flavors).
Cheap fresh vegetables, an almost infinite variety of fresh breads and rolls, and host of German and French cheeses -- these are the things that keep are oven-less cuisine from becoming monotonous.
Each little valley and town has its own culinary tradition. You can find wurst most everywhere, but there seem to be more varieties of wurst than there are permutations on pig, cow, chicken, intestines, ribs, liver, etc.
It's also interesting to note how much of German cuisine bears indication of its origin in a time before refrigeration and rapid transportation. In particular, this can be seen in the seemingly infinite ways the Germans have for preparing vegetables with vinegar.
There is much that I could say along these lines. One day, hopefully, I'll be able to say a lot more about history, geography, and cuisine. For the moment, though, I'm going to talk about food in less elevated terms. about Aldi and our hot plates.
In the picture above you can see our kitchen. I took this picture from the same spot that I took the picture of the entertainment center for the first blog entry. If you consider these two pictures together, you will get a sense of the size of our living area. At the moment we don't have a table. When we get one, it will probably sit to the left in the foreground of this picture.
This isn't just our kitchen. This is our "built-in" kitchen. Upon arriving here, we learned that most apartments (more than 90%, I would guess) come without a kitchen. Not just without appliances, but without a kitchen. That means no fridge, no oven, no sink, no cabinets. Most apartments come with an empty room or wall, a space where a kitchen may be placed. Then you have to go to the kitchen store. They have whole stores with nothing but kitchens in them. The kitchens sell 2,000 Euros or more. Needless to say, this was a moving expense we had not expected. Add this to cost of furnishing an apartment, and you have one big problem for our credit cards.
Thankfully, we found a furnished apartment with a built in kitchen. That's the good news about the kitchen. The bad news you can see for yourself. We plan on getting rid of the microwave, but at the moment we have just enough counter space for a cutting board. We don't have an oven, though we do have two "burners" -- glorified hot plates, really. As you might guess, our lack of an oven limits our cooking options. Last week I looked online to find traditional Thuringian recipes. I found a number of interesting looking recipes, all of which required an oven.
We face other challenges in our attempts to cook, many of which have to do with the size of most groceries stores in the city and the selection they offer. I'll talk about the grocery stores -- and the almost daily ritual of grocery shopping -- on another day. The grocery stores deserve a day of there own.
I'll close with a brief inventory and explanation of the contents of our fridge. On the bottom level you see two bottles of sparkling water, a cucumber, a basket of carrots, and colored peppers. The sparkling water is cheap and good. About three times a week I carry a package with six 1.5L bottles seven blocks from the store to our apartment. The produce is also remarkably cheap. I suspect subsidies. In particular, the colored peppers are cheap. At home they usually cost $3.99 a pound for red, yellow, or orange. Here we pay about two dollars for a package with a green, a red, and a yellow pepper. With all of these vegetables we make salad almost every night.
On the next shelf you can see jam (for Dolores' breakfast), mushrooms, and a half-empty package of saurkraut. On the next shelf you can see broccoli, which we ate this evening, a head of lettuce, and a few packages of salami. On the top shelf we have Gouda cheese and eggs. In the door there is milk in a box, orange juice in a similar box, plain yogurt for muesli, and a bottle of some sparkling fruit juice (no sugar or artificial flavors).
Cheap fresh vegetables, an almost infinite variety of fresh breads and rolls, and host of German and French cheeses -- these are the things that keep are oven-less cuisine from becoming monotonous.
5 comments:
This is the day I have been awaiting.Since I left Brooklyn 60 yrs ago I have been trying to find thuringer I dont give up easily and asked for it in my local market only 2 momths ago,to no avail.For 60 years Ihave dreamt, with my mouth watering, of a thuringer sandwich on a fresh roll ,with cole slaw. Oh, such joy! We can discuss how to get it for me later. but at long last I have hopeGrandma.
P.S. I forgot.ou can have a delicious treat if you gently fry the peppers the red and orange ones in alittle olive oil mit onions ,if you wish,or a little garlic or tomato.ou could pour this over a pasta or rice or a really good bread. They are better cooked than raw. Enjoy Grandma
By the way, thuringer is the name of a delicious sausage or luncheon meat that we would buy in the wonderbar delictessons in Bay Ridge Brooklyn owned by Germans.It was a special treat to walk into one on a Sunday evening and be greeted by the aromas of pickle barrels, cheese rounds all sorts of hams,potato salads,cole slaw ,rice tapioca, andotherpuddings andcustards. All this was freshly made in theck of the store.It was like Christmas every Sunday night.Ooh and also imported chocolates.
I also wanted to tell you that if you like the cooked peppers you canslice a plain cheese on top and put them in the microwave for a minute delicious.
Do they have crockpots in this crazy Jena you live in? I have a good pumpkin soup recipe to share. Do you even have pumpkins?
Tell me you at least have a Denny's.
I followed up on the crock pot issue, turns out some people buy them in England or France and bring them back to Germany because they don't really exist there. Strange. Anyways I also found out that you can purchase an entire kitchen on the German Ebay : Ikea Küche Udden plus Elektrogeräte!
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