Germany Food Adventures

To celebrate my parent’s 30th anniversary, we had a family trip to Germany – mom has been wanting to visit for a long time! While Germany cuisine is not known for having the most flavor (or being the healthiest ha!), it was really fun to try the different food and drinks in each region.

Food

We ate lots of meats, cheeses, bread, and eggs for breakfast. We had German pancakes (more like a crepe) with Nutella and honey.

Schweinshaxe (Pork Knuckle) – we enjoyed this at Mutter Hoppe. Ours was the fried version with crunchy skin (but there is also a pickled version braised version (Schweinebraten) we didn’t get to try but looked interesting)

Wiener Schnitzel – thinly sliced piece of veal-meat, covered with flour, egg and bread crumbs and then deep fried. Reminds me of a chicken fried steak.

Germany is of course very famous for all its sausages. You can see them hanging everywhere in stores

Bratwurst (Grilled Sausage) – the most famous Bratwürste come from Nürnberg.

Currywurst – sausage that is sliced and spiced with curry ketchup, popular in Berlin as a fast food. You can order it with skin (“darm”) or without. It was invented after WWII

Weißwurst – white Bavarian sausage made from minced veal and pork back bacon, served with sweet mustard, famous in Munich. I really loved the cute blue and white napkins here.

For side dishes we had Spätzle (egg noodle), sauerkraut (Fermented Cabbage), and bratkartoffeln (german fries), Handkäse (sour cheese marinated in oil, vinegar and caraway, specialty of Frankfurt), and goulash. I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of any German side dishes, but all worth trying at least once though! Also I was expecting to see tons of bretzels (pretzels) but we barely saw any!

Fun fact about potatoes – King Frederick II of Prussia, also known as Frederick the Great or the Potato King introduced potatoes to his people, which became a staple. So people lay potatoes on his grave in Potsdam.

Desserts / Sweets

Apfelstrudel – this is actually Viennese but it is very popular through Germany. We enjoyed it served with vanilla sauce in several restaurants and pastry shops. We also ate Apfelfritters and apple cakes with cream and apple pie and Apfelchips.

Schneeballen – traditionally at weddings and Christmas, popular in Rotheburg. We tried marizipan/hazelnut, chocolate, and cinnamon. I loved seeing the huge towers of schneeballens.

Lebkuchen/ gingerbread – traditionally for Christmas and famous in Nuremburg. The monks came up with the idea of placing the dough on a thin wafer base called oblate to prevent sticking.

We had tasty little cakes, from the mohnkuchen (German Poppy Seed Cake) to truffeltortchen (truffle cakes). However, we did not see a single German chocolate cake. And it was really hard to find a Black Forest cake, even when we visited the Black Forest in Obergammau (we had one which we very meh).

Other interesting sweets are these jellies showing the famous red and green Ampelmann logos from Berlin. There was lots of chocolate, cookies, marzipan throughout the shops.

Drinks

Apfelwine (Apple wine) – made from apples, has alcohol content of 4.8%–7.0% and a tart, sour taste. Apfelwein is served in Bembel (a specific Apfelwein jug which is grey and blue). Known for in Frankfurt. We of course had to buy a bembel for our new apartment.

Kaffee – Germans like to drink drip coffee mostly black. I loved seeing these cool containers

We had beer at nearly every meal and tried light, dark, and wheat. We had beer at Cologne’s famous brewery Fruh and Munich’s Hofbräuhaus, one of the most famous beer halls in the world. Of course we had to bring some German beer stein souveniers.

We also bought liquor and Schnaps at Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Unlike American schnapps made from grain alcohol and fruit flavors, German is distilled directly from the fruit. I bought kirsche liquor to bake for black forest!