Aal: Eel. In the old days, eels were taken from the Elbe, Hamburg’s river, which may explain why eel is so popular in that city. However, most of the eels served in Germany now come from the Baltic or North Sea and, according to connoisseurs, the choicest are those caught just as they set out on the two-thousand-mile swim to their spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea south of Bermuda. Such eels are fat, firm, and lobster-tender. Some say they taste as much like meat as fish, which prompted one Hamburg chef to remark, “Nobody even knows if an eel is a land animal or a fish.”
Although most north Germans relish fresh eel, smoked eel (gerducherter Aal) is their favorite snack. The way to eat it is cold, with tart pickles to cut the richness. In the U.S., where eel is nearly nonexistent, mackerel makes an acceptable substitute.
We’ve used it in place of eel in the two German eel recipes included in this book. The results, let us be the first to admit, aren’t the same. But they are good.

Aalsuppe: Eel soup. A sweet-sour Hamburg classic made of the oddest mix of ingredients: ham broth, eel, dried apricots and prunes, fresh apples and pears, plus a garden full of vegetables.

Ahendbrot: Light supper; literally, “evening bread.” But broadly speaking, it is simply the evening meal—bread and cold cuts, warm food — whatever you eat.

Abendessen: Dinner. In Germany, the dinner hours extend from about 6:30 to 8:30, and the more cosmopolitan the city, the later the hour. In Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich, for example, the pricey restaurants don’t begin to fill up until around 7:30.

Allgau Emmentaler: Ivory-hued Allgau Emmentaler is Germany’s most famous hard cheese, the one with the big holes, and it is every bit as delicious as the more famous Emmentaler made next door in Switzerland. Allgau Emmentaler is made of cow’s milk, molded in wheels or blocks, and depending upon how long it has aged, ranges from mild to moderately strong.
Known for its nutty, pleasantly salty-sweet flavor, Emmentaler is a high-protein cheese
that averages about 45 percent butterfat. It shreds and slices neatly (one reason Germans
slip it into salads and sandwiches).
It melts smoothly, too, and is integral to that glorious German quiche called Lauchkuchen

Alse: Shad. Shad is extremely rare in northern Europe because it doesn’t swim in the Baltic. It is being imported to Germany more and more often, however, and young German chefs are beginning to improvise with it.

Ananas: Pineapple. One of the French food words used widely in Germany today, and one of the lush tropical fruits Germans adore. “We stir pineapple into lots of things,” Hedy says. “Bavarian creams, tortes, even meat and poultry recipes; then we call them ‘Hawaiian.’ ” This fondness for pineapple developed during the American occupation after World War II, when shipments of canned pineapple suddenly became available. Germans even began cooking sauerkraut with pineapple—using approximately equal amounts of each.
“Hawaiian” sauerkraut remains popular to this day.

Anis: Anise. The licorice flavor of these tiny tan seeds is reserved for sweet breads, cakes, and cookies. To heighten the rich, sweet-spicy taste of anise, grind the seeds in a little coffee grinder just before you use them. The difference in flavor between freshly ground aniseeds and commercially packed powders is incredible.

Anschovis: Anchovies. They are also known in Germany as Sardellen. They are not as popular as other fish, but are integral to such classic recipes as Schnitzel a la Holstein (browned veal cutlets topped with a fried egg and a crisscross of anchovy fillets) and Steak Tartare.

Apfel: Apple. Among the more popular varieties today are James Grieve (an uncommonly juicy apple that’s only medium-sweet), Cox’s Orange Pippin (succulently sweet and full of rich apple taste), Gravensteiner, Boskop (a pleasantly sour apple used in cooking), Jonathan, and even Granny Smiths and Golden Delicious. Bratapfel is a baked apple and Apfelstrudel is just what it seems—apple strudel. There’s none better than Bavarian Apple Strudel), which is baked in a casserole with cream.

Apfelmus: Applesauce. A must with potato pancakes, also integral to a creamy horseradish sauce that’s delicious with baked ham, boiled tongue, assorted wursts, and cold cuts. See Apple-Horseradish Sauce.

Apfelsaft: Apple juice. German apple juice is clarified, a lovely rich amber color, and its flavor captures the very essence of the apple. Apfelmosi: is more like our apple cider, but isn’t readily available.
Indeed, it’s considered something of a specialty (one of the driest and best is Viez, produced
along the Moselle). Apfelwein is a sour drink of low alcoholic content that’s drunk mostly in and around Frankfurt.
Then there’s Apfelschnaps, a sweet golden liqueur, savored at meal’s end like a fine brandy.

Apfelsine: Orange. Apfelsine is the old German word; Orange (see below) is more widely used today.

Aprikose: Apricot. Apricots grow well only in the Rhineland, Rhineland Palatinate, and Baden areas, where the climate is temperate. During the summer apricot season, Germans like to eat these sun-ripened fruits out of hand or simmer them into a compote (Kompott) or a voluptuous sauce to ladle over chocolate cake. Germans are particularly fond of apricot marmalade, which they not only spread on bread, but also use in making layer cakes (the marmalade is smoothed on the layers before the final frosting to seal in the crumbs).

Aubergine: Eggplant. Although not a vegetable we usually associate with Germany, eggplant is very popular across the country today. Open-air food markets like Munich’s sprawling Viktualienmarkt sell big, glossy purple eggplants, round white ones the size of grapefruits, lavender specimens as long and slim as bananas, and even egg-size aubergines. And thanks to Germany’s major food magazines — essen u0026 trinken, Feinschmecker, Kochen u0026 Geniessen, Schoner Essen, and Rezepte mit Pfijf, to name a few—home cooks are learning
to cook eggplant just as the French, Italians, Greeks, Turks, and Americans do.

Auflauf: Casserole. It can be sweet or savory, a dessert or a main dish.

Austern: Oysters. A delicacy found only in top restaurants and fish markets. What Germans eat is the European oyster ( Ostrea edulis ), found in offshore waters from Morocco to Norway. French oysters are choicest and these, together with Dutch oysters, are exported to Germany. They are best in the “R” months, which in Germany means from September right through April.
Germans rarely cook oysters, preferring to eat them on the half shell with a squeeze of lemon—nothing more—at the start of an elegant meal. German hostesses usually put out special oyster forks, but it is perfectly acceptable to pick them up and slurp them
out of their shells.

Bachforelle: Brook trout. Because this European trout can survive only in high, clear mountain streams, it is becoming scarce. The rivers around Triberg, in the Black Forest, used to jump with trout and no less aft angler than Ernest Hemingway once went there to fish.

Bachkrebs (also Krebs): Crayfish. Freshwater or river crayfish are growing scarcer and scarcer in Germany and are now a luxury. Even though they’re being farmed in Bavarian lakes, their price isn’t likely to drop anytime soon. Home cooks consider them the province of the professional chef, and most chefs treat Krebse with respect and agree that the best way to cook them is to boil them 3 to 4 minutes — often with bundles of chervil, parsley, or
dill. Once cooked, the Krebse are piled on platters and sent forth. An experienced diner knows just how to attack the scarlet mound. Holding a crayfish in his left hand, he breaks off the tail with the right. He then cracks the back so its meat can be gotten at, and twists off the claws. Next, with a special crayfish knife, he slits the tail open, lifts out the vein, and twists out the meat with a special crayfish fork. Most crayfish fans save the best till last—the claw meat. Depending on the formality of the occasion, they either suck the meat out or go alter it with the crayfish fork.

Backerei: Bakery. The varieties of breads, pastries, cakes, and cookies is staggering, particularly at Christmastime when bakers pull out all the stops and fill their windows with Zimtsterne (cinnamon stars), Stollen, and Lebkuchen (gingerbread) houses trimmed in stunning detail.

Backpflaume: Prune. German cooks are far more imaginative about cooking with prunes than Americans, who use them mostly for breads and desserts. Northern German cooks like to pair prunes with meat, poultry, and fish. No recipe proves how freewheeling they are more than Eel Soup from Hamburg, an awesome combination of eel, prunes, apples, pears, celery root, leek, kohlrabi, carrot, green peas, and asparagus. Another odd pairing—also a classic from the north of Germany—is a porridge made of prunes, barley, and bacon.

Banane: Banana. Germans are more likely to slice bananas into fruit salads or to peel and eat them rather than to cook with them.

Barsch: Lake perch. A lean white freshwater fish, very good but not as popular as Zander (pike-perch).

Basilikum: Basil. Fresh basil is a comparative newcomer to German kitchens, just as it is here. And German cooks use this aromatic, sun-loving member of the mint family very much as we do — to enhance the flavor of tomatoes. In soups and stews, crumbled dried basil is an acceptable substitute.

Bauernomelett is a farmer’s omelet, also sometimes called Bauernfruhstuck, or farmer’s breakfast. It’s a hearty one-dish meal that begins with potatoes and diced bacon or ham being browned in a skillet, and is then finished off with beaten eggs cooked just until set.

Baumkuehen: Tree cakes. Konditoreien that specialize in making these tall, stately tree cakes often forest their windows with them. The original Baumkuchen recipe comes from Berlin, and even today only professional bakers can make it because it requires a spit with an iron tip shaped like a fir tree. While the hot iron spins slowly, the baker pours a thin stream of yellow cake batter evenly over the iron, a little bit at a time so each layer browns before the next is applied. Baumkuchen are hollow and, when sliced crosswise (the correct way), their dozens of thin layers resemble the annual rings of a tree. Some Baumkuchen are
glazed with white icing, others with chocolate.
Most are sealed in tins or clear plastic tubes and travel well. We’ve brought many of them home to the United States and found them as fresh, moist, and beautiful as the day they were baked.

Beilagen: Side dishes. The ones Germans dote on are potatoes, dumplings, and spaetzle, but Beilagen is an umbrella term that also includes rice, vegetables, even condiments—anything served as an accompaniment to the main dish.

Bierhalle: Beer hall. But if Germans want to go out for beer, they don’t say, “Let’s go to a Bierhalle.u0022 They say, “Let’s go for a beer,” or, “Let’s go to Augustiner or, “Let’s go to the Hofbrauhaus the name of the specific Bierhalle. On the other hand, if they’re headed for one of the big brewery-owned Biergarten (beer gardens), they would say, “Let’s go the beer garden.” As soon as the spring sun appears and it’s warm enough to sit outdoors, people flock to Biergarten, most of which are in Bavaria. Many Biergarten are shaded by enormous chestnut trees and, as Germans sit drinking their steins of beer and chatting with friends, they usually eat soft pretzels and a big white radish, maybe even some cold cuts they’ve brought along (perfectly proper).

Bierkeller: Beer cellar. Smaller than a Bierhalle but larger than a Bierstuhe. Today a Bierkeller may or may not be in a cellar. In the old days it always was — the place, in fact, where the barrels of beer were stored.

Bierstube: Beer tavern. A small and cozy spot, usually without music. In a Bierhalle there’s often an oom-pah-pah band.

Bierwurst: Beer sausage. This bolognasized wurst is not made with beer; it does go well with it — as a cold cut. A Bavarian favorite, Bierwurst is pink, coarsely textured, and heavily flecked with smoked pork and fat.

Birne: Pear. Pears grow best in the temperate lower reaches of the Black Forest, especially around Freiburg. The favorite German varieties are the juicy Clapps Liebling, the sweet and fleshy Alexander Lucas, the buttery but not so perishable Gellerts Butterbirne, and the spicy but sugary Kostliche von Charneux. The most popular of all, however, is the elegant Williams
Christbirne. Germans use pears in eel soup, teamed with green beans and bacon, and not least, in a variety of fruit breads. In Bavaria, where dried pears are known as Kletzen, women also bake a dark, heavy, dried pear bread called Kletzenbrot for the Christmas holidays.

Birnenschnaps: Pear eau-de-vie. A colorless, potent pear brandy much like Poire William that is both drunk at meal’s end and used in cooking. Some of the best comes from the Black Forest (Schwarzwald).

Blaubeeren (also Heidelbeeren): Blueberries. What grows in Germany is the Bilberry, a first cousin to the blueberry so familiar to Americans. It’s a wild berry, smaller and tarter than our commercially cultivated berries (these are now available in Germany, too). Blaubeeren thrive in evergreen forests and in peak season (July and August), whole families take to the woods and fill their baskets. These wild blueberries may be eaten out of hand, mixed with
quark and honey, tossed into a fresh fruit salad, or simmered into a Kompott or jam.

Blaukraut (also Rotkohl and Rotkraut): Red or purple cabbage. The difference in terminology is mostly regional.
In northern Germany, for example, it is Rotkohl or Rotkraut (red cabbage). And in the south, it is Blaukraut (blue cabbage).
German cooks, who cook red cabbage better than anyone in the world, know that adding acid intensifies the rich red color.
Omitting vinegar and/or red wine gives cooked red cabbage a bluish cast.

Blauschimmelkase: Blue cheese. There are two types of German blues, the sharp and crumbly Edelpilz Blue (available in slimmed-down varieties with 26 percent butterfat) and the blander but richer (70 percent butterfat) Creamy Blue, best described, perhaps, as a cross between a blue and a Brie (it has the same white rind and melt-on-the-tongue texture). Both are superb snacking cheeses, delicious, too, at meal’s end with fresh fruit.

Blumenkohl: Cauliflower. The connoisseurs cabbage, the most elegant family member, or as Mark Twain once joked, “It’s nothing but cabbage with a college education.’ As its German name suggests, cauliflower is a “cabbage flower.” Although a Wurttemberg paper included it among a list of new vegetables at the end of the sixteenth century, cauliflower wasn’t firmly established in Germany until the next century. It was an immediate hit, and its buttery richness made it a Lenten favorite. The peak season for cauliflower is between December
and April, but in most parts of Germany it is available year-round.

Blutig: Undercooked. If meat is too rare, it is blutig, or “bloody.”

Blutwurst: Blood sausage. A dark, almost black sausage made of fresh hog’s blood, diced pork and pork fat, salt, pepper, and assorted seasonings. It’s cooked and smoked, then sold as links (about two inches in diameter and six inches long). The classic way to serve Blutwurst is whole, after a brief warming in hot water, with fried potatoes and onions on the side. Sometimes, the Blutwurst is coarsely chopped and fried in lard or butter right along with onions and potatoes (in olden days, when money was tight, this made a frugal but filling meal). There are also blood sausages that fall into the cold-cut category, mostly
coarsely textured, bologna-size links studded with bits of pork fat.

Bockwurst is a short, chunky frankfurter type of sausage, delicately seasoned and always served hot.
Originally, Bockwurst was made only in spring — at Bockbier time, usually May when Germany’s strong, dark bock beer was available, hence its name. Today Bockwurst is available year-round.

Bohnen: Beans. A generic term that includes a large variety of fresh, canned, and dried beans. To get down to specifics, grime Bohnen are green beans; weisse Bohnen, white or navy beans; gelbe Bohnen, wax beans, Puffbohnen, limas, and Kajfeebohnen, coffee beans. In haute German cuisine, green beans are used more than the other varieties, particularly the young, exquisitely tender Prinzessbohnen (princess beans), carefully selected so they are all the same slim size. These fragile green beans are available from July to November and
must be cooked quickly because they’re extremely perishable.

Bohnenkraut: Summer savory. Not so long ago, Germans used savory almost exclusively
to flavor beans—green beans, broad beans, dried beans, every kind of bean — which explains why they call it Bohnenkraut (bean herb). Did they know that the Greeks and Homans used it as an antiflatulent thousands of years ago?

Bowle: Cold wine punch. A Bowle always has additional ingredients — berries or other fruit, for example, or woodruff ( Waldmeister). Germany’s Bowleti season traditionally begins in May (with the woodruff-infused May Bowl) and then lasts through the summer as long as the weather is warm and fresh fruits are available. Most Bouden are made in large glass punch bowls, then kept cool with little sealed containers of ice. This way the ice doesn’t
water down the punch.

Braten: Roast. This may be a roast or pot roast, it may be pork (the most popular), beef (almost as popular), or veal (the most expensive and elegant), but it may also be goose or duck—anything, in fact, that is roasted. To non-Germans, the most famous Braten is probably Sauerbraten, a pot roast of beef that’s sliced and smothered with spicy, brown, sweet-sour gravy. See Rhineland-Style Sauerbraten with Raisin Gravy.