April 23 is German Beer Day! (Isn’t every day German Beer Day?) This auspicious date celebrates the signing of the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot (Beer Purity Law) of 1516. Bavarian Duke William IV decreed that beer could only contain Barley, Hops, and Water (the importance of yeast still hadn’t been worked out). Now over 500 years old, it’s one of the oldest…
Category: German Foods and Recipes
German Green Bean Salad Recipe – Grüner Bohnensalat
My mother must have prepared this German Green Bean Salad Recipe (Grüner Bohnensalat) at least a few times a month and maybe even weekly during the summer. Come to think of it, these green beans arrived on the table at Oma’s house quite often, too. Why? It’s a simple recipe that tastes good. Better yet, you can easily adjust depending…
German Beet Salad – Rote Beete Salat for your Salatteller
As a child, I considered beets to be incredibly deceptive. The color of my mother’s Rote Beete Salat looked like garnets, and edible jewels should taste of magic. But instead, German Beet Salad tasted like, well… beets. Still, like I always told my kids, when you grow up, your tongue changes, and things you once ran from now taste delicious.…
Oma’s Simple Salad with Creamy German Salad Dressing
My Oma often served a side salad of Feld Salat with her Creamy German Salad Dressing as a side dish to the warm midday meal. The dressing may seem unusual since it contains heavy cream and sugar, but adding oil, vinegar, and diced onion somehow works. When I was a rotten child, I picked out the onions and tried to…
Schinken Käse Eier Salat Recipe- German Ham Cheese Egg Salad
I got this recipe for Schinken Käse Eier Salat (Ham Cheese Egg salad) from a friend of my cousin who served it at an Easter Brunch. It’s a variation on a Wurst Salat, a combination of cheese, sausage, herbs, oil, and vinegar. (Don’t confuse it with Fleischsalat, Meat Salad, which is made with a mayo base instead of oil and…
German Easter Candy and Sweets to Fill Your Easter Basket
When I was young, we looked forward to receiving packages from my Opa a few times a year. Brown paper wrapped packages, tied up with string (actually twine… but Julie Andrews never mentions twine in her song). They came at Christmas (in the odd year he didn’t visit), our Birthdays, and Easter. After Mama carefully untied the knots and saved…
Vanilla Sauce Recipe – Vanillesoße – the Perfect Dessert Topping!
oVanillesoße is the little black dress of sauces. Honestly, it complements every dessert or Nachtisch. Tasty Vanilla sauce softens the tartness of Rote Gruetze, adds an extra dimension to Apfelstrudel, and magically transforms ordinary chocolate pudding into a fancy dessert. My Oma always kept packets of instant Vanillesoße in her “packet drawer” (you know the one… it had packets of…
What is Bock Beer? And Do Germans Really Call it Liquid Bread?
I regularly see memes and articles about how German beer is considered “flüssiges Brot,” or liquid bread. But where does this idea come from? Most likely, this started with a group of monks and Bock Bier. During Lent, members of the Paulaner order abstained from eating solid food. Bock beer, with its extra load of carbohydrates and nutrients, satisfied some…
Chocolate and Pear Cake Recipe Schoko-Birnen Kuchen
One of the things I love about German baking is how they mix fruit and cake so easily. (Maybe it’s to lessen the ‘guilt’ of eating cake? You can honestly say you are getting your daily allotment of fruits too.) The first time I saw this Chocolate and Pear cake I thought… hmmm, it looks like a version of a…