Boefflamott? - Bavaria's cuisine has some surprises in store

By Florian Sanktjohanser Apr 20, 2010, 15:17 GMT

Munich - Viewed from a distance, the image of Bavarian cuisine is clear and simple: roast pork with bread dumplings, white sausages, bread, and of course, beer.

But the closer one gets to the scene, the food becomes all the more varied and difficult to define.

'You can't talk about a 'typically Bavarian' cuisine,' says Monika Poschenrieder, a gastronomy expert at the Bavarian Hotel and Restaurant Association in Munich. 'In Swabia there are the spaetzle (noodle dumplings) and maultaschen (meat ravioli), in Franconia the schaeufele (roast pork shoulder) and grilled bratwurst sausage,' she said, referring to two regions within Bavaria. 'All this belongs to Bavarian cuisine, not just roast pork and weisswurste (veal sausages).'

Especially independent-minded is the cuisine in Franconia, a region in the northern part of Bavaria, says Ulrike Schillo, product manager at the Bavarian Tourism Marketing company in Munich.

'There, each city has its own bratwurst speciality.' For example, in Coburg they grill the sausages over pine cones for a unique smoked flavour. Also well-known is the Aischgrund carp, which originally was a fasting-time meal in many monasteries of central Franconia.

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, as the regional cuisines started to take on their own shape, most Bavarians could only dream of having fish and juicy slabs of meat.

'Back then it was a peasant-like, very poor cuisine,' Schillo says. Most people in the rural areas only had dumplings and flour-based foods, joined later on by potatoes. The selection of vegetables was mainly limited to cabbage and beets. The rough climate really didn't permit much more than this rustic cuisine, Munich star chef Alfons Schubeck notes.

There was meat only on Sundays, and in poor families, only on the most important holy days - and even then, the meat was not exactly the filet piece.

'Every part of the animal from head to foot was processed, so that even the udders, calves' feet or tripe were served up on the table,' Schillo notes. But now, traditionally poor-peoples' dishes like tongue of calf or a stew made of lungs, along with bread dumplings, have in the meantime become 'chic' in the gourmet temples of modern-day Bavaria.

For Joachim Kaiser, head chef of the Meyer's Keller restaurant in Noerdlingen, one of the principles of genuine regional dishes is 'not only to use the choice parts of an animal, but also the shoulders and innards.'

In the refining of Bavaria's traditional rustic cuisine, foreign dishes have played a big role. According to Poschenrieder, it was from Austria and Bohemia that the Bavarians added such bakery items as apple strudel and hollowed noodles, while ever since the Napoleonic period of the late-18th, early-19th centuries, French cuisine has been en vogue. To this day, you can find a dish on the menu which reads 'Boefflamott' - a Bavarianized version of the French dish 'boeuf a la mode.'

For this dish, beef or pork are marinated for several days in red wine, then briefly fried in a hot pan before being braised for two to three hours in a pressure-cooker. It is served either with flour dumplings or bread dumplings.

According to legend, it was in a tavern in the Marienplatz square in the heart of Munich that the Bavarian veal sausage - weisswurst - was invented, in 1857.

To this day the sausages are mainly eaten before noon. To be more precise, the authentic way of consuming them is to suck the soft meat filling out from the skin. Those who are not so tradition-minded may simply slice the sausage skin lengthwise and then scrape the meat away with a fork. A weisswurst meal is not complete without three further components - a sweet mustard, pretzels and beer.

In recent years, a new generation of young cooks has gone about modernizing the heavyweight Bavarian cuisine and leading it to new fame. As in times past, the cooks have taken their inspiration for their new creations from other cuisines. For example, fish caught from Bavaria's Alpine lakes are served up Mediterranean-style, with different spices and more vegetables, Poschenrieder says.