Beyond brez'n and bratwurst - Bavarian cuisine
Apr 08 '03 (Updated Dec 08 '07)
The Bottom Line Bavarian food is hearty, diverse, impressive and served up in a fun, convivial atmosphere.
On my first visit to the German region of Bavaria, my culinary expectations were rather low. When visiting Nuremberg, I knew the food would be filling and hearty, but I didn't expect it to be a great world cuisine. And in fairness, Bavarian cuisine can't be called truly great. But my recent trip to Munich has confirmed my initial favorable impression of the food in this region. Given that the Bavarians had to draw on a fairly limited range of staples - potatoes, meat, cheese, cabbage and wheat - I find the variety of different Bavarian dishes extremely impressive. I've yet to have a bad meal in either Nuremberg or Munich.
There's no use pretending that this region is a vegetarian-friendly sort of place. In fact, Bavaria's must be the quintessential meat 'n potatoes cuisine. That said, the Bavarians have contrived to make these ingredients both delicious and interesting. Now make yourself comfortable while I wax nostalgic for a fine cuisine.
The Staples
Pork is probably the single most important food in Bavaria, closely followed by the potato. Other meats such as beef, veal and chicken play important supporting roles. Fish is available for much of the year but certainly not the most popular choice. Eggs are eaten both as a meal in their own right and as ingredients in other dishes, especially desserts.
After the all-important potato, fresh greens, red and white cabbages, carrots and other root vegetables such as beets and celery root fill out the typical Bavarian larder. Summertime berries are treasured in Bavaria, as they are in the Scandinavian countries. They are made into much loved jams and preserves to be savored throughout the year. Other cold-hardy fruits such as apples and pears are common as well.
Cheese is popular, as is yogurt, but neither of these is often used as an ingredient in a complex dish. They are rather enjoyed in their own right. Butter and animal fats are often used in cooking, but cream far less so - it is instead whipped and served to accompany desserts. Aside from the barley devoted to beer making, wheat is the most important grain in the Bavarian diet. Almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts have important uses in the wonderful Bavarian pastries and desserts.
The Spices
The range of seasonings that enliven the hearty Bavarian dishes goes far beyond salt and pepper. Caraway is used very widely, especially in Munich. I encountered this spice in coleslaw, potatoes, soups, sauces and soft cheese spreads. Other seeds such as poppy, sunflower and sesame frequently adorn small bread rolls. Fresh parsley and chives are very commonly used to garnish savory dishes of meat or spätzle, as are deeply caramelized sliced onions. Dill is probably the next most popular fresh herb. Vinegar, once valued for its preservative properties, is still used abundantly in both vegetable and meat dishes. Sweet and spicy mustards frequently appear on the Bavarian table in ceramic crocks. Horseradish - sometimes softened by mixing it with shredded apples - is a favorite condiment for sausages and other meat dishes. And beer, that most beloved beverage, also does duty as an ingredient in many sauces.
Bavarian chefs have also cautiously taken up some non-traditional spices, while keeping closely to traditional dishes and ingredients. For instance, I was served an excellent dish of finely sliced beef and onions seasoned with pink peppercorns. They nicely complemented the dish without overwhelming it. Fresh ginger also appeared in small quantities in a beet salad that accompanied a main course at dinner. Garlic is not a traditional staple of Bavarian kitchens, but it has been incorporated modestly into a few dishes. What culture has ever proven completely impervious to garlic's charms?
Typical Dishes
The most important Bavarian food - the one that foreigners most readily associate not just with Bavaria, but also with Germany as a whole - is of course, the sausage. Wursts, as they are called in German, vary enormously in ingredients, appearance, texture and in the ways they are properly prepared and served. Almost every Bavarian town has its own particular sausage that they are fiercely proud of and fond of. But this doesn't mean that you will find only one variety of sausage per town, or that you can't find one town's favorite sausage in another. In Nuremberg, for instance, the local sausage is the bratwurst - a tiny grilled sausage about the size of an index finger, generously seasoned with fresh herbs and served in portions of six or more on pewter plates with either horseradish, potato salad or sauerkraut. In Munich the local sausage is the weisswurst, a short, fat fresh sausage made of at least 70% veal, and very delicately seasoned. According to tradition, the weisswurst must be gently simmered or steamed - never boiled - and served with a sweet grainy mustard. The diner is meant to peel the sausage before eating it.
Other famous meat dishes typical of Bavaria include wienerschnitzel and sauerbraten. Many foreigners are already acquainted with wienerschnitzel - a thin cutlet of veal, breaded and pan-fried. This dish is commonly garnished with chopped parsley and served with a wedge of lemon. It has a very mild but rich flavor. Sauerbraten is a type of beef preserved with vinegar, slow cooked, and often served with a brown gravy. It has a mildly sour flavor and a very delicate texture. There are many more hearty but less famous meat dishes to sample as well.
In terms of vegetarian main courses, spätzle is probably the most popular. Spätzle consists of rough and short egg noodles, often made by rubbing the dough over a cheese grater or similar tool. After boiling, these noodles might be combined with cheese and crisp caramelized onions, or perhaps with chopped spinach or other vegetables. A dish of spätzle is quite filling and delicious.
Soups are also much loved in Bavaria and many visitors will encounter soups they've never heard of or tried before. For instance, pretzel soup, Christmas noodle soup and liver dumpling soup are all local favorites in the region. Pretzel soup must have developed as a way of using up stale pretzels. Whatever its origins, the soup is wonderful. In a clear, rich broth with a smoky pork flavor, there are bits of pork, caramelized onions, chopped up soft pretzel pieces and some parsley. Christmas noodle soup is, unsurprisingly, a specialty of the winter season. It too has a base of clear meat broth, but strips of very thin pancakes provide the starch content. As for the liver dumpling soup, all I can say is it's popular. I hate liver and have never tried it.
Bavarians love their side dishes, and best of all they love the potato. Potatoes grace the table in about a million different ways - boiled and buttered, pan fried, roasted, in sweet or savory potato salad, as pommes frites, large potato dumplings, and so on and on and on. Even if it doesn't say so on the menu, it's a good bet whatever you order will show up with a serving of some kind of potato. (I always wonder what the Irish and the Bavarians ate before the potato was brought to Europe from South America.) Atkins dieters beware. Other common side dishes include sauerkraut, coleslaw, other dumplings made from wheat flour or bread, green salads and beet salad.
Bavarians are also highly accomplished bakers. The most famous contribution of the region's bakeries is undoubtedly the pretzel, or brez'n in the Bavarian dialect. You will find pretzels everywhere in Bavaria. They appear in the breadbaskets at dinner and lunch. (No, they're not complimentary - you're expected to keep track of and report your consumption of these.) Bread bakeries prepare them in large quantities daily. They are sometimes split with a knife and buttered to serve as breakfast or a snack for those on the go. And of course at beer halls and festivals they are hawked by both roaming and stationary vendors. At these events they are often super-sized and larger than the biggest dinner plate you've ever seen.
Other famous Bavarian baked goodies include streudel (in many variations) and apple cake. You will frequently find confiseries, or pastry shops, selling slices of absolutely enormous round cakes and pastries. In both Nuremberg and Munich, I saw examples that were easily two feet in diameter. These delicacies were then cut into narrow but very long wedges, at least a foot long, for individual servings. Carrot cake, apple cake, nut cakes and hearty German pastries based on berries or custard are quite typical.
Other desserts include the bizarre looking Bavarian yeast dumplings and the bizarrely named kaiserschmarrn. I first saw the yeast dumplings being served hot on a severely cold evening in the Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt. They looked like unbaked rounds of bread dough, not least because they seemed to be coming from a steam-filled proofing box. Each large dumpling filled a wide and shallow bowl. A little hot milk was poured over each one and then it was dusted with sugar and spice and served up piping hot.
Our introduction to kaiserschmarrn was interesting as well. As we dined at a restaurant in Munich one night, the waiter delivered an enormous skillet to a table of four diners next to us. In the skillet was a jumbled mass of something that looked like Yorkshire pudding, but with additional ingredients such as raisins. Without being too obvious, we studied this dish and when the waiter came to our table, we asked him what the dish was. He explained that the name kaiserschmarrn means "king's chaos" and legend has it that the dish was named when an elegant dish meant for the Kaiser was dropped. To salvage the dessert, the cook scrambled up the mess and sprinkled it with powdered sugar. We were actually able to try this dish because the table next to us couldn't finish it off between four people, and seeing our curiosity about it, they kindly offered us the leftovers, which even we couldn't finish up. Kaiserschmarrn, according to our informative waiter, contains a lot of eggs, some flour, milk, sugar, raisins, almonds and butter. When it is brought to the table, it may be flambéed with whiskey or some other liqueur. When the flames die down, it is dusted with powdered sugar and served, sometimes with lingonberry jam and applesauce.
Beer
If beer has a home, it must be somewhere in Bavaria. This region produces more beer than any other place on earth. Several festivals take place each year in Bavaria that focus on beer, the most famous of which is the Oktoberfest. But small ones, such as the Lenten Starkbierfest, attract much local attention as well.
I'm not really qualified to say anything about Bavaria's beer, since I don't like or drink the stuff myself. So the following tidbits were gleaned from my beer connoisseur husband. Bavarian beers run the range from pilseners to pale ales to stouts and there are special beers made for certain times of year, such as Christmas ales and the especially caloric "strong beers" which the monks have prepared during the season of Lent for centuries. Weissbier, made from wheat instead of barley, is another popular Bavarian specialty. My husband greatly enjoyed the Paulaner Salvator double bock beer and the Weissbier by the Weisses Brauhaus in Munich even more so.
Dining out
Meals in restaurants are clearly social events for Bavarians. The noise level in restaurants is relatively high for the number of people there. Loud restaurants usually bother me, but somehow in Bavaria the noise transmits a happy, lively and ever so slightly rowdy sensation and it never bothers me. In fact, I find it very enjoyable and welcoming. Everyone seems to be having such a good time.
Cigarette smoke is a major problem however. It seems as if almost everyone smokes and very few restaurants even bother with just-for-show non-smoking sections, as if it would do any good anyway. If you don't smoke and hate being around others who do, you'll have problems here. Outdoor dining in the summer months is a good strategy, though not perfect of course. Another is to show up very early or very late for dinner and pick the most isolated table you can find.
Tipping is not required in German restaurants as all bills contain a service charge already. But it is not unusual to add a 10% tip if you are satisfied with the service. The tipping method will seem strange for Americans. The proper way is to tell the waiter how much you intend to pay - total - when handing them the cash and the bill. They will return the change to you then and there. Leaving a tip on the table after your check is handled may confuse your waiter.
To ask for the check, say "Die rechnung, bitte." The associative memory aid here being "the reckoning," which happens to be the word for the check in Flemish, more or less.
Mealtimes
Most Americans and other visitors from the English-speaking world will have no trouble adjusting to mealtimes in Germany. Bavarians begin lunch anywhere from 11:30-1:00 and dinner is typically eaten at 7pm. Many restaurants are open for dinner as early as 5pm. Some stay open all afternoon, particularly in the larger cities. If you know you'll want a late lunch or an early dinner your best bet is probably a brauhaus. In these business, the menu might be a bit limited, but it will certainly contain the hearty mainstays to accompany the beer they aim to sell.
Prices
The costs of eating out in Bavaria closely match those in the larger American cities, but with prices being pretty much euro for dollar. In other words, a meal that would probably cost $40 in the US will cost €40. At the time of writing, the dollar is worth about 90 European cents, so Americans are paying a 10% premium.
The exceptions to this near parity are the beer festivals. Here you can expect to pay €10 for a liter of beer and a chicken leg. In fact, while attending the starkbierfest with my husband, I asked for mineral water instead of anything alcoholic. I was stunned to learn that I could only order my drinks in liter increments and that my mineral water would cost as much as my husband's beer: €6.80! It was small consolation that my water came in the same ceramic steins that the beer came in - no one could tell I wasn't drinking beer. Expenses will mount rapidly at such events. Be forewarned.
Final Thoughts
I very much enjoyed my two recent visits to Bavaria, and not least because of the excellent food which I sampled there. It's not the place for those who aim to keep to vegetarian or low-carb diets. But the warmth of a Bavarian beer hall or brauhaus should be experienced by everyone at least once.
Did you enjoy this commentary on Bavarian cuisine? If so, you might want to read about:
• Andalucian cuisine - tapas, bacalao, Serrano ham and red wine!
• Umbrian cuisine - an overview of Italy's finest cuisine
• Cuisine of Veneto - Asiago, sopressata, radicchio, Prosecco and more
Or, if you're looking for more information about Germany, try these:
• Munich - simply a fantastic city, with so much to see and do!
• Nuremberg -a smaller, more northerly Bavarian town with a great Christmas market
• Dresden - a developing Saxon town in the former East Germany
• Aachen - home to marvelous hot springs & a World Heritage Site
If you happen to be craving good German food in San Francisco, I heartily recommend Suppenkuche, for unpretentious German bierhaus charm in the Hayes Valley neighborhood.
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