Stalk market

We arrived in Germany during Spargel (white asparagus) season and noticed that infatuated locals put it on special menus and make meals centered on the fat albino stalks. To grow it, the asparagus has to be hidden from the sun by burying it in dirt mounds and then carefully plucked by hand. All this makes it the most expensive vegetable. It then has to be peeled and delicately cooked. It’s also thicker, more fibrous, and harder to chew. The season is short…and not sweet. Maybe they should call it the Pale-o Diet.

Happy as a lark

Not to be outdone by Dresden’s stollen, Leipzig’s signature pastry, the Leipziger Lerche, also earned Saxonian Baker’s Guild protection. Originally the recipe called for actual lark songbirds, herbs, and vegetables mixed into a savory pastry. In 1720 alone, 400,000 birds bit the pastry dust. Thankfully the larks now have their own protection and credit the bakers for helping to preserve them by creating the new sweet version: Pastry dough filled with marzipan, a cherry inside symbolizing the heart of the bird, and a cross on top as a reminder of the bands once used to tie up the birds. They fly off the bakery shelves!

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Bach in the day

Bach lived and worked in Leipzig much of his life. At the Bach museum, across from the St Thomas church where he was cantor, I focused on some noteworthy quirky history: 1) Bach composed a “coffee cantata” in which a father forces his daughter to choose between marriage and coffee, often performed at a local coffeehouse; 2) Leipzig was the center of electrical research and one of Bach’s colleagues created the famous electric kiss experiment in which a woman stood on a stool charged with static electricity and when someone kissed her, sparks flew; 3) only one painting of Bach exists and his eyes follow you around the room; and 4) Bach died from a botched eye surgery. The annual BachFest begins the day after we leave (don’t fret, we’ll be Bach!).

New kids on the block

Arlo’s cousin Chris has made his home in Leipzig which inspired us to start our trip here. His fiancée Linda has two young boys and our whirlwind play date at an amusement park in the countryside made us all feel like kids again. And that sky-high corkscrew slide? Gravity made me do it!

Mussel memories

After climbing the Frauenkirche tower above the Elbe river, circumnavigating the palace grounds, and gawking at the Procession of Princes porcelain tile mural, Carmen had one more treat for us. Found only in Dresden, Haselbauer ice cream somehow finds a niche softer than soft serve. So soft that it requires painting (not scooping) it onto a mussel shaped edible bowl. Shell, yeah!  I’m already falling face first into the food tour and food blog habit!

Saving humanity

A few raindrops started so Carmen took us to Sophienkeller, a cellar restaurant that felt like stepping into a storybook. A pig roasting on a spit, dirndl-wearing bakers, and a rotating carousel table greeted us. I couldn’t get over the whole ambience.

Carmen said we had to try Dresden’s famous Eierschecke cake.  If we must! 

The word “Schecke” apprently comes from the late Middle Ages to describe a tunic with three parts: upper part, belt, and lower part. The cake has three layers, the base (yeast dough or cake), the cheesecake or quark layer, and the custard top. It tasted similar to a cheesecake but lighter. 

The German author Erich Kastner said “The Eierschecke is a type of cake which, to the detriment of humanity, has remained unknown to the rest of the world.” 

Now that this significant discovery has been published in my blog, humanity is saved!

Buttering up the Pope

Carmen offered us a personal tour of Dresden last Christmas and we took her up on it today, albeit a bit late for the Christmas market. The first ever Christmas market was in Dresden in the 1400s and the city is now known as the Christmas stollen capital of Germany…and the world. During December they have a parade with the world’s biggest stollen pulled on a cart by eight horses. Apparently back then the Christmas stollen, made only of flour, yeast, and water, resembled and tasted more like the rough stones that braced the mineshafts. (The translation of stollen is a tunnel in a mine). The people of Dresden wanted a better Stollen so they wrote a letter to the Pope in Rome asking for permission to use butter. After a long wait, they got a yes IF they paid a special fee to the church. This became known as the legendary “Butter Letter” and today’s much-improved stollen was baked. If I were casting about for a thesis topic, I would research the Butter Letter. Today only certified bakers in Dresden can bake authentic Dresdener Stollen so imagine my reverence when I happened upon one in a bakery today. I opted for the marzipan version which probably cost the bakers an additional letter and fee to the Pope. Amen!

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