Making the Best of the Wurst

August 14, 2014May 9, 2024 ~ travelsandtomes ~ 10 Comments

Recently, another blogger I follow took note of the Germans’ penchant for pork. Took issue with it, really. And, while I think taking aim at another cultures’ tastebuds is a thorny undertaking at best, I do feel a little sympathy for other people who are swine-averse in Germany. There’s no easy way to steer clear of the pig when in the Palatinate.

And I should know. I am not a sausage eater. I don’t mind the aroma, the spice, the bite of garlic or pepper–those are all fabulous…seductive, even.

Not sure I like the idea of sausage, but sausage is not really one of those things anyone should think too closely about, so that’s not the problem.

I’m just allergic to pork. So I avoid it. No biggie. Up to this point in my life, there have always been lots of options. In the South, I go to BBQ joints and order shredded chicken or beef. I take a pass on bologna, and I feel no great loss. However, in the land of beer and brats, you find yourself adrift on a sea of sausage… absolutely schwimming in schwine.

The boys in my family think this is fabulous, and I won’t contradict them. But it does make for some awkward moments for me. I feel funny always asking what’s in a dish that I don’t recognize–it feels a little high maintenance. And, since my German is very rudimentary, I often don’t understand the answers I get back. So there’s a lot of just steering clear–taking the widest path around anything that might possibly contain pork.

Which knocks out a lot of things in Germany. (I thought my Ritter chocolate bar smelled slightly bacony the other day…but I ate it anyway, and I’m still standing.)

So here’s the plan: Germany may be a swine-fest 24/7, but it’s also a chocolate and pastry and spatzle fest, so I will not suffer (although my waistline might). My household will savor all that Germany has to offer by the age old “Jack Spratt technique.” What I won’t eat (pork), my husband will relish; what he will only nibble around the edges (pastries), I will greedily gobble. You’ll recognize us if you sit nearby at a restaurant: we’ll be the people who’ve licked our platter clean.

Guten appetit!

A little sampler of facts about German Wurst:

*A wurst is a German or Austrian sausage–it is not necessarily made of pork, although pork is the most frequent ingredient.

*Wurst is sold both raw and cooked; it can be sold as a sausage or as cold cuts.

*If you happen to be near New Braunfels, Texas, you can go to the Wurstfest in November. It bills itself as “the best 10 days in sausage history”–the best of the wurst. Or the wurst at its best. And then, later, you can confuse people by saying, “I was once in Texas and had the best wurst.” ?! The Pocanos also advertise a Wurst fest, complete with Polka Bands, Bavarian dancing, Lederhosen, and hotdog races. The wurst at its ~~worst best wurst~~ …whatever. Chicago also has a three day Wurst fest. (This begs for a windy city joke, but I’m trying to be mature.)

*Bad Durkheimer, Germany (in the Pfalz, which is part of the Rhineland-Palatinate and close to where I live) has a Wurstmarkt wine and wurst festival in September. Part of the national Oktoberfest fervor, but with wine. (And, I’m told, the wine is served in half-liter sized glasses, like beer. Ouch.) The Durkheimer Wurstfest is famous for being the biggest winefest in Germany. It bills itself as a nearly 600 year old festival. (The flyer should read “the best 570 years in sausage history”–that would show Texas!)

*Apparently, there are over 1,500 types of wurst available in Germany. It can be found on a German table at any time of day or night. It is the subject of festival and poetry. (Well, if Robert Burns can write a poem about Haggis, then sausage is certainly fair game!)

* Holzhausen, Germany boasts the Deutsches Bratwurstmuseum–yes, a wurst museum– which houses documents that can date the beginning of wurst from the year 1404. So there you go; plan your pilgrimage now.

**If this is the wurst post ever, I apologize. Consider the subject.

I’ve Discovered Hell

July 14, 2014July 15, 2014 ~ travelsandtomes ~ 8 Comments

And it’s pretty tasty.

We went to the Getranke Markt Saturday and bought some beers we’d never seen before. We were amused by a few “Hell” labels, so we snapped some bottles up. (Sometimes amusement is as good a motivation as any.)

Popped open a cold “Hacker-Pschorr Munchner Hell” last night. YUM! It was fabulous!

Helles beers are a Pilsner-like class, so if you like the lightness of a Pilsner, you should give Hell a try!

Guten Appetit, Bottoms Up, and see you at confession in a few days!

Hacker-Pschorr-Munchner-Hell1 — Give ’em hell!

The Stinking Bishop and the Shop Girl–A British Romance

May 31, 2014May 9, 2024 ~ travelsandtomes ~ 2 Comments

Photo licensed via Creative Commons by Flickr member winestyr

It is a tawdry tale. A tale of woe. Of unrequited lust. Of temptations to be seen but not touched or tasted.

Of cheese.

Of what?

Of cheese.

***

Sometimes stories don’t travel the trajectory we expect. Oftentimes, in fact. In this story, the Stinking Bishop is not a sinister church cleric–although that would be the beginning of a great tale. No, in this case, the Stinking Bishop is simply a British cheese named after a sinister church cleric. A singular cheese of considerable stench.

Let me preface this story by saying that I am no fan of stinky cheese. On a visit with us in England, my father-in-law once mused, “How can something that smells so bad taste so good?” My answer: it can’t! Nature throws out certain warning signs that we shouldn’t ignore: the glaring red hourglass on the belly of a Black Widow Spider, the earth-shaking roar of an angry lion. These are nature’s way of telling us to run–run fast and run far– we are in mortal danger! And then there is the smell of very stinky cheese–same principle, folks. Why would you want to eat the stuff? But, I digress. I did have a story to tell.

My husband likes a stinky cheese. If it smells rotten and has veins of mold (blue, black, green–he has no prejudice), then he’s in! My basic policy is that any mouth that eats that stuff will not be allowed near my mouth for 24 hours. Sometimes this policy keeps him out of trouble, but other times the cheese is too powerful a mistress.

And so, when he heard of Stinking Bishop–the ultimate bombshell, the Marilyn Monroe of stinky cheeses–he was, sight unseen, smitten. But the stuff turned out to be elusive. To the point that he nearly believed it was a fable, a mirage, a Fata Morgana.

He had nearly given up his quest for the fabled cheese, when we found ourselves at Castle Howard in Yorkshire, England. (Read this aloud in a dramatic voice, and channel all the best scenes from Monty Python and The Holy Grail, and you’ll understand the great and rediculous heart swell that overtook my husband as the following events unfolded.)

After a day spent touring the estate and playing with our children in the gardens, we visited the shop–a sort of European farm market. And there it was in the case of cheeses, shining as if an aura surrounded it and emitting a sound only perceptible to the true of heart–a siren song to draw in weary travelers. Stinking Bishop cheese.

STINKING BISHOP CHEESE read the sign before the humble wheel. You wouldn’t have known you were in the presence of greatness if not for that sign–it was like that scene in Indiana Jones where he has to pick the true Holy Grail from a room full of faux grails. THE Grail is humble, unassuming. As was my husband’s beloved cheese. Or, at least, it looked that way.

As James approached the counter, the shop girl was handing samples of cheeses to prospective buyers. I think James was drooling a little. When his time came, he said, “I’d like to sample the Stinking Bishop, please.” The shop girl recoiled from his advances. Then she leaned over the counter and half-whispered, “Sir, we don’t open that cheese in the store.” My husband’s whole countenance dropped.

He looked at me. “No,” I said. “But,” he said. “No,” I said. Then I leaned, as the shop girl had done a moment earlier, and said “We can’t carry that cheese in the car.”

Katie playing dress up at Castle Howard. AKA, "Someone call the medic, they are opening the cheese!" — “Katie playing dress up at Castle Howard.” Or, as I’ve come to think of it, “Someone call the medic, they are opening the cheese!”

He understood that I was right. There are some things that are too powerful to be schlepped around in the profane world. And WAY too powerful to sit, enclosed in the tight space of a warm car.

The day did come when he was able to possess the object of his desire. I can’t tell you much about that moment. I was not in the room at the time. I was, purposefully, not in the room at the time. What’s more, we simply don’t speak of it. It’s his private moment: an obsession that I can’t understand, but a conquest that I would not want to sully. Some things are just too powerful.