Hassani - Spoonfuls of Germany: German Regional Cuisine

Irma Rombauers monumental The Joy of Cooking begins with an epigraph from Goethes Faust: That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee, earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it. When I attended high school in Frankfurt am Main, Goethes hometown, I studied Faust inside and out, but I never thought that this sentence would reveal its wisdom and truth to me through German food and by writing this cookbook.

I grew up in Germany in a bicultural family. Between my father, an immigrant from Tunisia, and my mother, a native of Westphalia, the meals we ate at home were eclectic, consisting of whatever my mother could assemble for dinner after a long day in the office. Most days we would have quick and easy meals: steak, pasta, and a salad. We never had fast food or frozen dinners. There was not much fast food available in Germany at the time. But that did not matter, because my mother deeply detests ready-made food. She still recalls with disgust the day we had just moved into a new apartment and she, as a last resort, warmed up ravioli straight from the can.

The few typical German dishes we had at home were Grnkohl (kale stew), which as a child I dreaded (not any more!), and Rouladen (beef roll-ups), which I loved (and still do). My maternal grandmother Lydia introduced me to a number of traditional German dishes when I came to her for lunch after school. She made me potato pancakes and filling bread puddings, which I preferred over the daily regimen of meat at home. At Christmas, she baked a variety of cookies, and for special family occasions she made a Black Forest cake so good no pastry shop version has ever fully satisfied me.

Except for these few goodies, I was not very fond of the traditional German foods I knew as a child. After family gatherings in my mothers native Westphalia, I complained to my parents about the old-fashioned, uncool, and bland home cooking. My mixed genes and struggle with a bicultural identity, I am sure, also contributed to my indifference towards German foods.

The summer I graduated from high school, I helped out in my mothers cousins upscale restaurant in Caracas, Venezuela. This experience marked the beginning of my serious interest in cooking. For two decades, I explored the cuisines of many lands and cultures, but, with the exception of a few cakes and other desserts, I treated Germany as a blank spot on my culinary map.

Ironically, my emigration to the United States in 1998 brought me closer to German cooking. Moving to America meant the loss of most of my cultural references practically overnight. I felt this even more when I met my husband, and his two young children. I had not read the same books as a child, did not know their nursery rhymes, had never eaten macaroni and cheese, and had not a clue about who or what a Sloppy Joe is. I realized that catching up to the American lifestyle and culture would take forever and would always remain a patchwork since I could not turn back the clock. So I decided to turn the tables and introduce a few elements of my own culture into my new world. This, I hoped, would have the double effect of widening the horizon of my new family and fighting my occasional attacks of homesickness (which creep up on me especially during holidays).

My craving for German foods set in not long after I came to America. Before my visits to Germany, I send my mother a wish list of German dishes. I also started to do what many expatriates do: with each trip home, I bring back a few ingredients that are difficult or impossible to find in the United States. Its amazing how German food is all I can think about during the eight-hour plane trip from Newark to Frankfurt.

For the first two years after I came to the United States, I worked as an editor at Hippocrene Books. The publisher, George Blagowidow, hired me fresh-off-the-boat. Five years later, George must have been reading my mind when he asked me to write about German regional food. Writing this cookbook helped me rediscover my roots without leaving my home in America.

In this book, I take an approach different from most German regional cookbooks. The recipes are arranged into four regions: North, East, West, and South, rather than into the sixteen German federal states. While all regions have their distinctive food traditions, clear culinary borders within the regions are often difficult to draw, because many dishes have traveled around and have become popular in neighboring states, often with slight variations and under different names.

I discovered an abundance of German regional dishes, many of which were new to me. It thrilled me to learn that German cuisine has so much variety. Selecting the recipes for this book was therefore no easy task, and I realized very quickly that drawing a complete culinary map of Germany would be impossible. I primarily picked dishes that I find tasty. The 200 recipes in this book are an eclectic and personal selection that carries no claim to completeness.

My criteria for selecting recipes were driven by several considerations. I wanted to honor the food pyramid and find a reasonable balance between dishes with heavy meat content and those with little or no meat. True to its reputation, German cuisine does include a lot of meat dishes, especially pork. As well, I only included recipes with ingredients that are easily available in North American supermarkets and specialty food stores. Whenever possible, I provided alternatives and substitutes for typical German ingredients. I sacrificed several deserving dishes because I did not want to frustrate the cook and send her or him on a shopping odyssey.

Delving into the foods of Germany and the history and stories behind them gave me tremendous pleasure. If you enjoy these recipes half as much as I enjoyed preparing and writing them, I will be very satisfied.