Coffee. I Need Coffee

As the Red Baron was out on his daily walk around noon this Sunday afternoon, he passed by St. Peter's Church in his neighborhood. I looked over the announcements and saw that there would be a baroque music concert with a cake buffet at 3:00 p.m.

   

The photo is misleading. The other year at "Cake with Bach,"
they performed Bach's Concerto for four harpsichords in A minor, BWV 1065, at Petruskirche.

So I returned to the venue around 2:30 p.m., and lo and behold, there were still tickets available. Since I arrived at the church early, I managed to snag a seat in the second row.

This concert is part of a concert series called "With Bach Through the Region." It began with Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067. Some scholars claim that this suite belongs to the entertainment music Bach wrote for the Zimmermannisches Caffe-Hauß in Leipzig.

Henry Purcell's "The Old Bachelor," Op. 607, impressed with its folk-inspired sounds and musicality.

The musicians thanked the audience for the deserved applause. From left to right: Traverse flutist: Karl Kaiser, concertmaster and first violin: Gottfried von der Goltz, conductor and harpsichord: Lars Schwarze. Note the listeners on the side waiting for Kaffee und Kuchen, which was served in the following pause. 

The highlight and conclusion of the afternoon concert was Bach's Kaffeekantate BWV 211.

Liesgen: Wenn ich des Tages nicht dreimal mein Schälchen Kaffee trinken darf ... Well, Red Baron needs at least three pots a day.

Liesgen, her father, and the narrator sang the final chorus together:

Cats do not give up mousing,
Girls remain coffee-sisters.
The mother adores her coffee habit,
And grandma also drank it,
So who can blame the daughters!

During the final applause for the orchestra and the singers, Liesgen wore cat accessories, while her father and the narrator wore mouse ears.

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Brezel Story

Red Baron blogged about the baked goodie, appreciated not only by toddlers in their strollers but also by adults, when served crispy and buttered. In 2013, you read a Pretzel Story; now I will tell you a Brezel Story.

The new story starts with a gruesome experience. This is what you get served as a 'bretzel au beurre' in the Voiture Restaurant of the SBB (Swiss Rail).

This indefinable pastry comes out of the fridge, is soft and without bite. Above all, the essential feature of a genuine Brezel is missing: The pastry does not have the shape through which the sun shines thrice.

  

Und wer hat's erfunden? The Swiss, though they successfully invented Ricola, the herbal candy.

So, who invented the real Brezel? There are various regions and places from Alsace to Tyrol that claim to have been the first to twist the dough in the elegant way.

The Swabian city of Bad Urach forwards the best legend about the original Brezel reported by the Badische Zeitung:

A baker named Frieder had fallen out of favor with Count Eberhard* im Bart. Frieder had committed a crime and was to be executed. The count gave him one last chance, coupled with a nearly impossible task: he was to shape a loaf of bread through which the sun would shine thrice.
*Earlier times glorified Eberhard as a benevolent sovereign, while modern historical research describes him as an anti-Semite.

The baker was lost. He ran back and forth in his bakery, while his wife stood in front of him with her arms crossed. That was the saving thought; the baker skillfully twisted the thin dough until it had the shape of today's Brezel. Count Eberhard, who resided in Urach at the time, was delighted when his subject presented him with the first Brezel. It has hardly changed since then - a perfect classic.

Still, there are regional differences in the form of the Brezel.

Bavarian Brezn with highly attached arms (©Wikipedia)

Swabian Brezel with arms attached at the bottom. Note the hernia in the belly. (©Guido Augustin)

Today, the easier-to-form Bavarian Brezn has pushed the Swabian Brezel out of the market, as a 2023 blog confirmed. 

There is a second place in Swabia that claims to be the originator of the Brezel. Indeed, the coat of arms of Altenriet shows two Bavarian (!) Brezn and a dachshund. To back up their claim, the Altenrieter hold an annual Brezelmarkt on Palm Sunday.

The former mayor of Stuttgart, Manfred Rommel*, once wrote the following conciliatory-sounding verses about the baked wonder:
*Son of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, known as the Desert Fox.

The wisdom of the Swabians is no mystery; The solution is called the lye pretzel. It illuminates with the torch of wisdom, The mind of the greatest dachshund.

Des Schwaben Klugheit ist kein Rätsel. Die Lösung heißt die Laugenbrezel. Sie erleuchtet mit der Weisheit Fackel, Den Verstand vom größten Dackel.

Does Rummel support the Altenrieter in their claim to the primogeniture? In no way, for the last line of his quatrain is sneaky: In Swabian German, a Dackel is a mentally challenged person.

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St. Gallen

Red Baron has often been on Leserreisen (trips for readers) with the local Badische Zeitung. Journeys to Hamburg in the far north are particularly popular among people from Baden (see 2020, 2022, and 2023). This time, it was just a day trip to St. Gallen and the Rhine Falls.

The bus ride through the pre-summer landscape was pleasant. Our first stop was St. Gallen, where we got off at the Einstein parking lot. Einstein? What did he have to do with St. Gallen?

Advertising a musical

As we approached the tourist center after a short walk, his famous protruding tongue lit up in the distance.

So my first question to the hostesses was: What does Einstein have to do with St. Gallen? No one could answer me. Finally, ChatGPT came to the rescue: There is no known special or outstanding relationship between Albert Einstein and the city of St. Gallen.

Before visiting the famous abbey library, the actual destination of our trip, our group set off on a walk through the city.

The monastery district

From the 15th century onwards, the city of St. Gallen was the center of an increasingly flourishing linen industry, which reached its peak around 1714 with an annual production of 38,000 cloths. Linen production provided work for farmers who grew hemp and flax, spinners (primarily women) who spun the fibers into threads, weavers who wove the threads into cloth, bleachers who bleached the cloth white in the sunlight, and merchants who finally sold the fabric.

Workers in the "bleaching fields." Painting of the mid-17th century

The lengths of fabric, which were up to 80 meters long, were laid out flat on open meadows to be naturally lightened by the sun, water, and air.

Thanks to rigorous quality controls, the white linen from St. Gall was the finest available and was traded throughout Europe.


Around 610, the Irish monk Gallus came to what is now Switzerland to convert the Alemanni to Christianity. His grave soon became a popular place of pilgrimage, where in 719 the Alemannic priest Otmar founded the Abbey of St. Gallen.

Since its foundation, the monastery has rapidly gained influence. In a donation around the year 720, vineyards in Ebringen, a village south of Freiburg, were bequeathed to the monastery. This deed of donation is the oldest document kept in the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen. It represents the first real estate acquired outside the monastery and is the oldest written evidence of viticulture between Freiburg and Basel.

During our tour of the city, I took the above photo of grapes on a stone house. When I asked our guide, he explained that in the past, only wine drinkers could afford stone houses because they were "steinreich" (stone rich).

He then continued that the well-known German saying "Wein auf Bier, das rat' ich dir, Bier auf Wein, das lass sein" (Wine after beer, that's what I advise; beer after wine, that's what I dissuade) does not mean that the two drinks must be consumed in a specific order for the total drink to be digestible.

Indeed, there is another English translation: "Wine after beer, that's my choice; beer after wine, never be a slave again," with the correct German meaning, which describes the social rise or fall of citizens as identified through their choice of drink.

During St. Gallen's heyday, there were four breweries on the monastery's grounds. Beer was the drink for the masses, as only citizens who had become wealthy through the trade in white linen could afford expensive wine.


In 1526, the then-mayor and humanist Joachim Vadian introduced the Reformation in St. Gallen.

Matthäus Merian: Topographia Helvetiae, Rhaetiae, et Valesiae. St. Gallen in 1642.
Note that the Schiedmauer surrounds the monastery grounds on the left (©Wikipedia/sidonius)

Initially, the monastery and the city coexisted peacefully, but in 1566, a wall was erected between the two, known as the Schiedmauer (dividing wall).

The quality of St. Gallen linen was good, but it was also expensive. Soon, cheaper competition emerged, including sheets made from cotton. Fewer and fewer white clothes were ordered. By 1798, the bleaching fields outside the city were empty.

St. Gallen experienced a second boom in the early 19th century, when machines began to replace hand embroidery. Many farmers from the surrounding area had such a machine installed on their farms in exchange for a down payment. They supplemented their meager income with the help of their wives and children. Around 1910, embroidery was the largest export industry in Switzerland, accounting for 18% of the country's total exports. Over 50% of global production came from St. Gallen.

Why is St. Gallen's famous library called "Stiftsbibliothek" (endowed library) and not "Klosterbibliothek" (monastery library)?

Napoleon is to blame for this, as he is for everything else. In the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss (Imperial Recess) of 1803, he ordered the secularization of all ecclesiastical institutions in his territory to satisfy the territorial claims of his allies during the reorganization of Europe.

 
So, monasteries, when they survived, somehow became endowments.

  

Entering the Stiftsbibliothek in felt slippers

Vow!

Immense treasures are on display here:

Around 980

In 1125

1200 to 1300

Around 1510

The picture above shows neume notation, the precursor to today's musical notation.

Apple was here, still unbitten.

St. James's scallops showed the way to the Stiftskirche

St. Gallen is a station on one of the many routes to Santiago de Compostela.

       

Unpretentious Baroque

Triumphant Christ with St. George's banner or Freiburg's colors?

Erie reflections in the baptismal font

OLMA Bratwurst, Rösti, onion gravy, and St. Galler monastery beer

I had lunch in memory of my late son, who studied at the Hochschule St. Gallen and introduced me to OLMA* Bratwurst. 

*This acronym initially stood for Ostschweizerische Land- und Milchwirtschaftliche Ausstellung and is now the annual Schweizer Messe für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung (Swiss Fair for Agriculture and Nutrition)

The food was excellent, but since I was eating in Switzerland, I paid more than for a steak in Germany, and the onion gravy was charged extra, at CHF 5.

After lunch, our group continued to the Rhine Falls near Schaffhausen.

We took the boat ride.

Spectacular

Choppy river waters

Watching others from the safety of the shore

**

Sarcopenia

Age begins with immobility.

Red Baron's equilibrium is greatly disturbed. So, I had to give up cycling and sold my e-bike one year ago. Instead, I walk intensely for at least 30 minutes a day.

According to experts, this is not sufficient to fight sarcopenia. In fact, my weight has decreased over the years, and I have developed a slight belly. My doctor told me, "You can't get rid of that belly." Since the density of muscle at 1060 kg/m³ is higher than that of belly fat at 920 kg/m³, this is a typical sign of muscle loss.

Sports science knows muscle training is highly effective as a therapy against sarcopenia. Regular visits to the gym combined with balance training and a protein-rich diet have the most significant effect on quality of life for people with age-related muscle loss.

For years, Red Baron has been trying to counteract sarcopenia with Kieser Training. I work my muscles twice a week for 90 minutes, doing 14 exercises, many specifically to strengthen the legs. Mind you, the pre-printed training plan only allows for a maximum of 10 exercises per session.

Yet, over the last few months, I've become increasingly wobbly. When I read an expert's statement, "The older you are, the more strength training you need," I decided to train three times a week.

And I was surprised. My scales, which "measure" total weight as well as various components such as fat, water, and muscle mass, have been showing a decrease in fat percentage and a simultaneous increase in muscle mass for a month now.

Still, Red Baron doesn't expect miracles.

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German Cuisine

Red Baron was raised on Westphalian cuisine. My mother learned to cook at her parents' farm in Nottuln, south of Münster.

My father liked simple Westphalian dishes, although occasionally, he asked my mother to prepare Berlin food, which he was brought up with and for which his sister, my aunt, was famous.

My mother cooked authentically and seasonally. The ingredients were regionally based on vegetables, occasionally including meat or fish. And we ate lots of vegetables, including all types of cabbage, such as cauliflower, white cabbage, red cabbage, savoy cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and in winter, kale, but only occasionally sauerkraut. Lentils, peas, and carrots were also high on the list.

The rare meat consisted of breaded pork chops or small hamburgers known in Berlin as Bouletten, which is why my mother called them Berliner Bällchen. When visiting grandma, my children's favorite dish was fried potatoes, a fried egg, and spinach.

In 1933, the Nazis decreed the so-called Sonntagseintopf (Stew Sunday), obliging citizens to cook a simple dish on Sundays.

Our family did not have Eintopf on Sundays but once a week. The money saved in this way had to be collected and donated to the Winter Relief Organization (WHW), short for Winterhilfswerk).

I was raised on Westphalian and Berlin food. Later, I learned German food is inedible and only beaten by English cooking.

Der Spiegel recently published an article: Was soll denn "deutsche Küche" sein? (What is "German cuisine" supposed to be?)

James Gillray

Let me confirm once and for all: There is no German cuisine, and although we are called krauts, sauerkraut isn't our national dish even when Ludwig Uhland, one of our romantic poets, spread the sauerkraut myth in 1815:

Auch unser edles Sauerkraut, Wir wollen's nicht vergessen Ein Deutscher hat's zuerst gebaut, Drum ist's ein deutsches Essen.

Our noble sauerkraut, too, We don't want to forget. A German prepared it first, That's why it is a German food.

Choucroute Royale en Alsace (©L'Alsace Royale)

Actually, the French and Belgians consume significantly larger quantities of sauerkraut on average than we Germans.

Do you remember the Turks besieging Vienna in 1529? They brought coffee to the West. And also, in the case of sauerkraut, war was the father of all things*, i.e., fermented cabbage.
*Herodot, fragments B 53: ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων.

The troops of the Mongol ruler Batu Khan defeated a Polish-German army of knights at Liegnitz, Silesia, in 1241. The victors may have initially spread cabbage pickling in that Slavic-speaking region.

So, the supposed German national dish was possibly invented by the Mongols, going back to Korean "kimchi" or Chinese "suan cai."

People like Otto Ule lamented the absence of German cuisine: "But where is our German fatherland, our German cuisine? Germans scoff at the frugality of French cuisine and the coarseness of English cuisine, but as they have no distinct nationality, they also have no national cuisine."

German cooking was and will remain regional. Every part of the country has its specialties. For example, whenever Red Baron travels, he drinks local beer or wine and eats what is offered as food in a specific region of Germany.

Here are some examples. Click on the blue links to see the pictures:

Hamburg

One of the musts in Hamburg is Finkenwerder Speckscholle (a plaice baked in finely diced bacon) served with a potato salad. As a dessert, you eat Hamburger Rote Grütt (red berry groats here with vanilla ice cream instead of the original vanilla custard).

Grünkohl (kale) is well-known in Germany's north. While traveling with a group, I had kale in Hamburg. Freiburg organizes a traditional kale dinner for all those Nordlichters (northern lights is a mocking name for people from Germany's north).

Finally, the real Bratkartoffeln (fried potatoes) are found in northern Germany. Red Baron devoted a particular blog to the various ways of frying potatoes.

Berlin

While in Berlin, I had Kohlroulade (stuffed cabbage roulade), roasted Blutwurst (black pudding), and Erbsensuppe (pea soup).

Berlin is well known for its Currywurst. Here, you may read about its history.

Cologne

Reibekuchen (potato fritters) are a must in Cologne. 

The Halve Hahn (half a cook) served in the shadow of the famous cathedral may shock you. It is only a chunk of medium-aged Dutch cheese and a Röggelchen.

Another specialty in the region is the Rheinisches Schwarzbrot (Rhenish black bread).

Bavaria

In Bavaria, the famous dish is roast pork with crackling, red cabbage, and potato dumplings. 

I had the typical Weißwurst with a white beer in Augsburg.

Saxonia

In Little Paris, I had Frittiertes Ur-Krostitzer Bierfleisch mit Kümmel, Knoblauch, Bratkartoffeln und Zwiebeln (Deep-fried Ur-Krostitzer beer meat with caraway, garlic, fried potatoes, and onions, Leipzig). The meal was topped off with Sächsischen Quarkkeulchen (Saxon chops made from curd cheese and sides).

Thuringia

Red Baron wrote a blog about Thuringian food he had at Weimar. There is Thüringer Sauerbraten mit Rotkohl und Thüringer Kartoffelklößen (Thuringian sauerbraten with red cabbage and Thuringian potato dumplings). Famous is  the Thüringer Bratwurst (Thuringian bratwurst). The Zwiebelsuppe (onion soup) differs from the one served in France. Thüringer Rostbrätel (a marinated cutlet of pig neck, grilled over charcoal with roasted onions and a dumpling) is delicious.

The Ratskeller also serves a delicious Rindsroulade (beef olive).

You can eat Wiener-style breaded schnitzels with French fries anywhere in Germany (Freiburg, Westphalia) year-round, but this is not a German dish. Please note that an authentic Wiener Schnitzel is made from veal and is rarely found on German menus.

Asparagus is seasonal and grown everywhere. The Germans, along with Red Baron, are crazy about white asparagus. Here is a blog about some aberrations. The area around Freiburg is a particular growing region. Due to the warm weather, overpriced white asparagus is expected as early as Easter this year.

During the chanterelle season in fall, which starts earlier each year due to climate change, this mushroom is served in cream sauce all over Germany. Red Baron hates cream sauce but loves chanterelles sautées with chopped bacon and onions. Here, I had them in Hamburg, Potsdam, Assmannshausen on the Rhine, and as a starter in Freiburg.

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A Traditional Kale Dinner

Last night, Red Baron participated in a Grünkohlessen at Freiburg‘s well-known restaurant, Großer Meyerhof. The man from Kiel*. Lars Petersen, Freiburg city councilor, district court judge, trombone player, band leader, and his charming wife, Meike Voss, once initiated the kale dinner. Yesterday, they animated the 14th edition with a quiz on Low German.

*Kiel is the capital of the northernmost German state

The demand for this annual kale dinner is great. However, I was early in my quest for a ticket, while those who arrived later had to be placed on a waiting list.

In 2014, I wrote a blog about Brassica oleracea var. sabellica L., claiming that the vegetable from northern Germany was virtually unknown in the south.

In the States, kale was discovered as a superfood in the early 2000s. As usual, American trends sweep across the Atlantic, so over the years and little by little, kale also became known in southern Germany.

When I strolled through the Minster market yesterday morning, I found the following offer:

Freiburg currently has permafrost, so the kale leaves were slightly covered with hoarfrost. They say that before a vegetable may be harvested, it must have frozen—the frost takes the bitterness out of its leaves.

I had my last Grünkohl in Berlin at the end of December in a restaurant, eating all by myself. Here in Freiburg, I sat at a table surrounded by animated, expectant diners.

And the beer did the rest.

The Großer Meyerhof served Brägele as a side dish. Red Baron, preferring Bratkartoffeln (North German-style roast potatoes), once blogged about various dishes made with roasted potatoes.

Different types of meat covered the small quantity of Grünkohl. It was not enough, so I asked the waitress for more. New kale was delivered hot and was well-received at the table. This meant a third delivery was necessary to meet my quantity requirements.

The kitchen and service team deserve big applause, and many thanks to Meike and Lars for their organization and animation.

The Lower German quiz was rather demanding. Who would know that Schinkenbüddel (ham pouches) simply are underpants, Plüschappels (plush apples) are peaches, and Windmölenfleeger (windmill flyer) is a chopper.

Here is the lady who won the quiz and became the kale queen. She waved graciously to our table.

My American readers will be interested in the answer to the quiz question: Who was, at times, the largest buyer of kale in the US?

Red Baron chose Pizza Hut among the options, assuming the food chain sold a lot of kale smoothies. The answer was correct, but the reason was different. Pizza Hut had bought large quantities of kale simply for decoration.

Look at the photo above. Beautiful Brassica oleracea var. sabellica L.
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A Dinner Show

Red Baron remembers well the first dinner show he attended in Las Vegas in 1981. Shirley Bassey was the star on stage. At that show, she possibly performed All by Myself, one of her hits then.

42 years later, I went again to a dinner show at Europa-Park north of Freiburg. The park is organized like a Disneyland. People come from France and Switzerland, with or without kids, and sometimes stay a night at one of the on-site hotels.

Freiburg's Münsterbauverein organizes this annual dinner show, and attendees are expected to donate the same amount as the ticket price to support the Minster Church.

You may remember that Red Baron is a Münsterpfleger. So once in my life,  I wanted to attend the special yearly dinner show on the condition that transport between Freiburg and Europa-Park was provided.

On the last Wednesday in November, our coach left Freiburg at 15:30, giving us a chance to walk around the park's winter installations.

Replicas of buildings from the federal states of Berlin, Bavaria, and Hamburg
line the central alley. Their respective flags mark them.
In the back, the Nuremberg Christkindle greets the rare visitor (Click to enlarge).

A slimmed-down copy of Freiburg's Kaufhaus

It was getting dark.
The rape of Europa on the back of Zeus turned into a bull.

In the Roaring 20s, dinner shows were typical in Paris, London, and Berlin, but the show culture was all American.

     

Ouverture

The dinner show at Europa Park was no exception. The songs performed were already in English. Red Baron was delighted to listen to music he remembers well:

Smile though your Heart is Aching

I am Singin' in the Rain

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

One Moment in Time

Here are some stage photos.

Note the ceiling painting: Europa and the Zeus bull.

Flying high

Out of the bathtub

A strong equilibrist

More dancing and singing

The end is near.

Thank you, audience

They placed me at the table already filled with seven members of one family. They were all nice; the conversation flowed, and the dinner was excellent.

Will I be able to re-attend next year?

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