Spoonfuls of Germany


by 19 Comments

The truth about Hänsel and Gretel

Gingerbread house

We had several inches of snow at Thanksgiving. Our house with its lit windows created a winter wonderland look – like the gingerbread house in Hänsel and Gretel. It put me in the mood to make a gingerbread house.

As I looked through recipes and assembled ingredients and patterns, it hit me that I do not know much about the origin of the gingerbread house tradition. I vaguely recalled a witch’s gingerbread house as the crime scene in Hänsel and Gretel, a fairytale by the Grimm Brothers. Continue reading →


by 2 Comments

East German nostalgia in a jar

Letscho

One of my favorite scenes in the great German movie Good Bye Lenin is when the main character Alex, a young man who in the last days of the crumbling GDR takes care of his gravely ill mother, fills West German pickled cucumbers into old East German jars to keep the illusion of the GDR alive, because any further upset could be a fatal blow to his mother, a staunch supporter of the ruling regime.

25 years after the Berlin Wall fell, the longing for the lost goodies, edibles and others, of the former East Germany is not that far from reality. It even has its own name: “Ostalgie”, the nostalgia for the East. Continue reading →


by 11 Comments

Why ‘Marmelade’ lost its name

Strawberry Jam

If you want to pick up what is commonly known as Marmelade (jam) from a supermarket in Germany, you will look for it in vain – not because there is none but because jam in Germany may not be called “Marmelade” unless it contains at least 20% citrus fruit. Everything else is called “Konfitüre”. Continue reading →