My Kind of Food

Memories of Sunday lunch, when I was a child living in the North-east of England, include large plates piled high with roasted meat, potatoes (maybe even two types), two or three other vegetables and Yorkshire puddings all moistened with rich dark gravy.  I enjoyed it a lot but as I’ve grown older, even though my stomach has grown bigger, my preference these days is for more proportionate plates of food.  Don’t get me wrong I can still work my way through a large portion of stew and dumplings, sausages and mash or very large fish and chips!  But, not every day.

The problem with the food on my recent trip to Bavaria was two-fold.  On the one hand the portions were generally enormous and on the other, eating out each evening, it was almost impossible to find a satisfactory lighter dish to break up the monotony of a very large pieces of meat accompanied by two very large bread dumplings, a pile of boiled potatoes and a mountain of sauerkraut.

I couldn’t fault the hospitality in the restaurants I used in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Munich and the warm feel of them was comforting in a deeply homely way, but after the first meal I really felt as though I was set-up for the next 48 hours  – sleep in this state came easily, followed soon afterwards by indigestion!

Some relative respite was found by substituting sausage and chips for meat, dumplings and potatoes.  I recall one particular dish in Munich which consisted of a range of different sausages, (including bratwurst, blutwurst and bockwurst) each of which was delicious (and frankly a meal in itself).  I didn’t get to try the (in)famous Currywurst, which I believe to be a German sausage smothered in a tomato and curry sauce – next time.

To be fair, I know little of the cuisine of the rest of Germany, except for having once eaten at a restaurant in Berlin (Margaux) where one tiny element of dish has remained in my memory for what must be at least 10 years.  It was the intense salty taste of a small cube of jelly made from Badoit mineral water – the antithesis of the Bavarian carb overload.

I took no pictures of the food in Bavaria as I was too occupied with the herculean task of trying to clear my plate but trying to find some examples of these gargantuan dishes on -line as I write this is proving difficult  Maybe the German tourist authorities have edited all of the images to make the portion sizes seem smaller and more elegant.

The Apple Strudel of course was delightful but was impossible for me to eat at the end of a large meal – better with a mug of hot chocolate for a mid morning snack!