1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (80 page)

Symbols of the light that guided the Three Wise Men.

The baking begins about a month before Christmas. In professional
konditoreien
and the homes of ambitious cooks alike, scents of butter and hot sugar combine with exotic wafts of ginger, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and gentle hints of lemon, almonds, and vanilla. This enticing assault on the nostrils continues right up until Christmas, for it takes that long to amass a sufficient number and variety of all the cookies (to say nothing of the breads, cakes such as stollen, and candies) with which Germans, Austrians, and other northern Europeans celebrate the holiday.

The results, crisp, buttery little conceits that are delicious to nibble with tea, coffee, milk, or the spicy hot red punch called
glühwein
, often have symbolic significance in pagan or Christian
lore. Stars are obvious icons, evoking the famous speck of light that guided the Three Wise Men (one of whom, the dark-skinned Balthazar, is honored with an eponymous fudgy chocolate and nut confection of his own). Marzipan and many other doughs will be cut into star shapes during the Christmas season—baked into the simple butter cookies called
mailanderli
, iced or decorated with colored sprinkles, or doused with cinnamon and nuts as
zimtsterne
.

Then there are cookies printed with animals or monklike religious figures, like the almond-and rosewater-flavored
Frankfurter bettelmännchen
(Frankfurt beggar men) and the egg white–glazed
spekulatius.
The story behind these animal cookies goes that in pagan times, a midwinter festival demanded the sacrifice of a farm animal. Since the poor could not afford such a sacrifice, they were permitted to substitute cookies in the form of animals.

Some Christmas cookies celebrate the romantic, expensive spices from the East that brighten midwinter darkness with a touch of luxury. Among those are the toothsome, hard little “pepper nuts,” or
pfeffernüsse
, and the crisply white, anise-scented drops called
anislaibchen.
Dozens more vary in name and form from one region to another, but all are kept fresh and tempting stored in airtight cookie tins in a cool place. But not in the refrigerator, where they lose their snap.

Then there are various kinds of the sweet yeast bread, stollen, including one with a roll of marzipan in the middle and
quarkstollen
which is made with a yogurtlike cream that is quark, halfway between sour cream and cheese. All stollens, because of their oblong folded forms, represent the swaddled newborn Christ child.

Makes about 6 dozen cookies

3 extra-large egg whites

1¼ cups superfine sugar, plus sugar for rolling out the cookies (optional)

1½ pounds (about 5 cups) unblanched almonds, finely ground, plus ground almonds for rolling out the cookies (optional)

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon pure almond extract, or 1 teaspoon brandy

1.
Preheat the oven to 300°F. Butter 1 or more large baking sheets.

2.
In a large bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer. As they begin to foam and stiffen, gradually beat in the sugar. Continue beating until the whites form stiff peaks that retain the mark of a knife blade. Set aside ½ cup of the beaten egg whites.

3.
Sprinkle 3½ cups of the almonds and the cinnamon and almond extract or brandy over the remaining whites and stir together gently but thoroughly. The mixture should be thick and fairly dense. Add more almonds if the dough is too sticky to roll out.

4.
Sprinkle ground almonds or sugar over a work surface. Roll out the dough to ¼-inch thickness. Using a 1½-inch star cookie cutter, cut the dough into star shapes, gathering up the scraps and rolling them out again. Arrange the cookies on the prepared baking sheet(s), leaving about ½ inch between the cookies. Brush the top of each cookie with a little of the reserved beaten egg whites.

5.
Bake the cookies until they are pale golden brown on top, about 20 minutes. Transfer the cookies from the baking sheet(s) to wire racks to cool thoroughly. Stored in airtight containers, the cookies will keep for several weeks.

Where:
In Munich and Dresden
, Kreutzkamm, tel 49/89-993-5570,
kreutzkamm.de
;
in Baden-Baden
, Café König, tel 49/7221-23573,
chocolatier.de/kh_koenig.php
;
in Berlin
, Café Buchwald, tel 49/30-391-5931,
konditorei-buchwald.de
; Bäckerei & Konditorei Siebert, tel 49/30-445-7576;
in Vienna
, Demel, tel 43/1-535-17-17-0,
demel.at
;
in Chicago
, Lutz Café and Pastry Shop, tel 877-350-7785,
chicago-bakery.com
;
in Santa Monica, Venice, and Culver City/Mar Vista, CA
, Röckenwagner,
rockenwagner.com
.
Mail order:
During the Christmas season,
shop.rockenwagner.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Visions of Sugarplums
by Mimi Sheraton (1969);
The 20 Best German Christmas Cookies
by Liane Guterhof (2013).

An expected but still welcome perk of a visit to Germany or Austria is the variety of luscious street wursts of all kinds that abound throughout the cities almost always served alongside—but not
in
—various sorts of bread. Suitable garnishes such as sauerkraut (see
listing
), braised red cabbage, and potato salad (see
listing
) will be on offer, along with smooth and hot or grainy and sweet mustard. The array of ingredients may be a bit hard for the novice to juggle, but new challenges are one reward of travel.

The Bavarian city of Munich weighs in with delectable walk-away wursts sold at many street stands, most temptingly in the Viktualienmarkt, the huge, abundant outdoor food market just a few squares away from the landmark Frauenkirche cathedral with its romantic glockenspiel. Wurst action begins before breakfast when the market opens, and continues until mid-afternoon. The Munich morning ritual for
frühstück
—fork breakfast—is the delicate, steamed veal and pork
weisswurst
, a snowy sustainer to be eaten out of hand, with sour rye
bauernbrot
on the side and Bavaria’s typical sweet-and-sour mustard. (Local protocol dictates that eating
weisswurst
is never acceptable after 11 a.m., but it seems to be available a lot later than that.) Heartier choices are grilled, gray pork bratwurst nestled against sautéed onions or sweet-and-sour red cabbage; and Hungarian-style Debreziner, named for the Hungarian city of Debrecen, famous for the hot paprika that flavors and colors this wurst. Kielbasa-style
polnischer
—coarse, peppery, and heady with garlic—is sliced in big hot chunks, and goes especially well with vinegary potato salad. If you have no plans for the rest of the day, try Munich’s traditional, sleep-inducing
weissbier
, a powerful, sunny brew brightened with a slice of fresh lemon. If not that, then malty,
dunkel
(dark) Löwenbräu
en fass
—on tap.

For a late-night supper after a round of heavy drinking, Berlin streets and subway stands offer currywurst, an exotic combination of lightly smoked pork wiener and an improbable topping of curry-spiked tomato sauce. Ketchup sometimes substitutes for or is combined with tomato sauce, but the sauce alone is preferable. Currywurst is most traditionally served on a paper plate, cut into chunks to be pierced with a small skewer; it can now also be had in a bun, but bread muffles the full flavor and texture of meat and sauce. (Side note: Although Berlin is credited as the home of currywurst, and a museum there supports this view, an intriguing book,
The Invention of Curried Sausage
, insists it originated in Hamburg.)

The medieval city of Nuremberg, famous for its cathedral and its Christmas gift market—the Christkindlmarkt (see
listing
) —is not the only place to get Nurnberger bratwurst, but it’s the obvious choice. There, the finger-slim mini-bratwursts of pork, grilled on skewers or wire racks over a wood fire, are served with sauerkraut and potato salad; they may also come with
erbsenpuree
, a soft jade puree of green split peas topped with sautéed onions. Whether at indoor tables or from stands, customers order the bratwurst by the pair, six being the local minimum. Bavarian mustard and
mauerlöwerlei
—bricklayer’s rolls—are standards with these charred, woodsy treats.

Vienna’s morning food market, aptly named the Naschmarkt—noshing market—displays a similar panoply of wurst temptations as Munich’s.

Where:
In Munich
, Viktualienmarkt, every day except Sunday, tel 49/89-8906-8205,
viktualienmarkt.de
; Zum Franziskaner, tel 49/89-231-8120,
zum-franziskaner.de
;
in Berlin
, for currywurst, Bier’s Kudamm 195, tel 49/30-881-8942; Curry 36 at the Zoo station, tel 49/30-3199-2922,
curry36.de
; Konnopke’s Imbiss, tel 49/30-442-7765,
konnopke-imbiss.de
;
in Vienna
, Naschmarkt,
naschmarkt-vienna.com
;
in New York
, The Standard’s Biergarten, tel 212-645-4100,
standardhotels.com/high-line/food-drink/biergarten
;
in Milwaukee
, Usinger’s, tel 800-558-9998,
usinger.com
.
Retail and mail order:
In New York
, Schaller and Weber, tel 212-879-3047,
schallerweber.com
.
Further information:
The Invention of Curried Sausage
by Uwe Timm, translated by Leila Vennewitz (1995).
Tip:
At the German Currywurst Museum in Berlin, you can learn all about the snack as well as sample it; tel 49/30-8871-8647,
currywurstmuseum.de
.

The best Austro-German-Tyrolean hybrid on the market may be
zwiebelrostbraten
—not a car but an arguably equally powerful pan-seared rib steak topped with a mound of fine, golden, and glassily crisp onion filaments. Some may argue that the correct cut for this specialty is the sirloin or strip steak, but true
feinschmeckers
know that the rib produces the juiciest, beefiest contrast to the burnished sweetness of the onions.

The one-to one-and-a-half-inch-thick steak is traditionally pan-seared in lard, but these days vegetable oil is substituted in the more effete places. The thinly slivered onions, very lightly floured, are turned into the pan when the steak has been removed. Once crisp and golden, the onions are set aside and a little pan sauce is created: The remaining lard is poured off and a bit of butter and a splash of beef stock are swirled into the pan to be spooned over the steak before it is crowned with the onions. Creamy potatoes, either scalloped or pureed, and a lettuce or watercress salad are the finishing touches.

There are other
rostbraten
, although none as stunning as this onion-topped favorite.
Esterházy rostbraten
is Hungarian in feel, with its sauce of chopped onions, carrots, and celery, lightly browned and seasoned with paprika, vinegar, and sour cream.
Schwäbischer
, or Swabian,
rostbraten
is a club steak pounded thin, fried in butter, and garnished with browned onions, bacon-topped sauerkraut, tiny fried
bratwursts, and spätzle (see
listing
). With all of those garnishes, who needs the steak?

Where:
In Vienna
, Beim Novak, tel 43/1-523-3244,
beimnovak.at
;
in Salzburg
, Goldener Hirsch, tel 43/662-80-84-861,
goldenerhirsch.com
;
in Washington, DC
, Café Berlin, tel 202-543-7656,
cafeberlindc.com
;
in Kansas City, MO
, Grünauer, tel 816-283-3234,
grunauerkc.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Cuisines of Germany
by Horst Scharfenberg (1989);
foodnetwork.com
(search zwiebelrostbraten puck).