German cuisine

German cuisine includes not only Frankfurt sausages and Bavarian beer, but also a wide variety of vegetable soups, aromatic breads, grilled, roasted, boiled, smoked and dried meats of all kinds. There are also traditional regional dishes, more than 1,400 breweries, around 15 different wines and unique Christmas treats. German cuisine is considered one of the highest calorie cuisines in Europe, but sophisticated travelers will find that Germany has many world-class restaurants. Budget-minded travelers will be delighted by the many southern and eastern European restaurants and traditional German restaurants offering mouth-watering lunches at affordable prices.

Characteristics of German cuisine

Like language, German cuisine varies greatly by region and the products popular there. Northern Germany is a fish and seafood producing region and has a high proportion of grain-filled black bread. The regional cuisine is closer to Scandinavian, with a lot of potatoes, green cabbage and fruit, which may sound exotic to those living in central Russia. The cuisine of southern Germany, especially Bavaria, is flour-based, rich in dairy and wheat products and, of course, a wide variety of beers.

West Rhineland has a wine-growing tradition dating back to Roman times. Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse have extensive vineyards. While 65% of the wines produced in Germany are white wines (mostly Riesling and Muller-Thurgau), Pinot Noir and Dornfelder are the most popular red wine varieties.

History - How has German cuisine been influenced?

For a long time there was no united Germany and each region developed its own culinary techniques in close contact with non-German peoples. This means that Bavarian cuisine is related to Austrian cuisine, which borrowed a lot from the Balkan peoples. Glaschschuppe, a common dish in the south, is an adaptation of Hungarian goulash, while bean soup came to Germany from Serbia.

In the west, onion soup (Zwieberschuppe) from France is popular in the Rhine valley. It is not known who first came up with the idea of mixing red berries and potato starch, but the 'rote grütze' native to northern Germany is called 'rote grütze' in Denmark, which translates directly into Russian as 'red porridge'. This name is used to refer to Polish red porridge, which is also called 'red porridge'.

This is because the Silesian region of Poland and the Kaliningrad region of Russia have long had a large German-speaking population and the region has a long culinary tradition closely intertwined with Polish and Baltic cuisine. The same dish often has two names and there is still disagreement between Germans and Poles about its origin. For example, the meat delicacy rouladen (smoked bacon and pickles wrapped in thin slices of veal or beef and baked in the oven) has long been known in Poland as roulada śląska ("rolada śląska"). Russian and Ukrainian dishes such as hodgepodge are also still popular in areas that were part of the German Democratic Republic.