Visiting 13th Century Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
My husband Laurent and I set out for Rothenburg in Bavaria, Germany and ended up admiring the ride through Baden-Wurttemberg region as well. Baden-Wurttemberg is a very diversified region. We started out by driving through the edge of the Schwarzwald (Black Forest), which is actually dark blue and green.
There are homes along the way in Baden-Wurttemberg that resemble Swiss Chalets. I kept expecting Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to pop out of these houses at any moment. The houses have extremely slanted roofs, so that snow will fall off them easily. Many of the roofs are covered with solar panels. The Germans use every resource available to them.
There are huge, modern white windmills with three propellers capturing energy made by the wind all along the autobahn to Rothenburg – another tapped into resource. You can also see town gardens every now and then along the autobahn. Apartment dwellers in cities have the right to a plot of land for gardening in Germany.
Baden-Wurttemberg is also home to many vineyards on its hilly slopes. There is even a town called Weinsberg on the way to Rothenburg. Vineyards run over every hill (the best wine is grown on slopes). The place reminds me of Burgundy in France, but on a larger scale. The varietal grown is Riesling, which is drunk in its preferred semi-dry state by Germans.
Once you reach Weinsberg, you are at the border of the Bavaria region. This region resembles the wine region of Baden-Wurttemberg, but the land is dedicated to agriculture. The soil here is dark, black, and moist earth. Snow and rain make Germany agriculturally productive and verdantly green in spring and summer.
Rothenburg’s nooks and crannies are all postcard photos waiting to be taken in this medieval town, beginning with the crenellated towers topped with turrets above the gates opening into this walled city above the Tauber River.
We walked through the cobbled streets, taking pictures of the signs hanging over the streets of pretzels at the baker’s shops and dragons at the taverns. The gabled homes are painted in pastel colors. Other homes have criss-crossing timber designs while even more homes feature a mixture of pastel colors and timber. Coats-of-arms are sculpted right onto the walls of the more well-to-do residences.
The St. Jakobskirche (Saint Jacob’s Church) dates from the fourteenth century and has several sculptures depicting Santiago de Compostela pilgrims. There is even a statue of a Santiago de Compostela pilgrim in front of the church, wearing the typical wide-brimmed hat with a string to protect against the sunlight and rain.
The church documentation did not say if the church was a pilgrimage route to Compostela or not, but the presence of these statues suggests that it was. The art insider’s secret to identifying a Santiago de Compostela pilgrim is the presence of scallop shells.
Across from the church, we went to a local family restaurant located in a hotel called the Reichs Kuchenmeister. A beautiful wood interior with planters of flowers and upholstered booths awaited us.
Three generations of Bavarian families sat at tables around the restaurant. Beautifully dressed and coiffed children conversed easily with grandparents and parents as they sat up straight with elbows off the table and ate with their fork in the left hand and knife in the right.
We hung up our coats on the coat rack; you always hang up your on the coat rack in Germany and never place it on your chair. It is considered uncouth to do otherwise.
We ordered the three-course menu and red wine. The wine was actually called schwarzriesling, or black Riesling. I am not sure how this wine is made – if it’s a mixture of varietals or a single varietal called schwarzriesling. In any case, the wine tasted of raspberries. The wine was served in what I thought were oversized glasses until the seductive perfume of the raspberries wafted over to me before I even picked up the glass.
“Oh, this is going to be good!” I thought to myself. The wine was excellent with the duck we had as our main course.
To begin our meal, though, we started with a white wine soup with lebkuchen croutons. Lebkuchen is German for gingerbread. Nuremburg, which is right up the autobahn form Rothenburg, is famous for its lebkuchen. The lebkuchen of Rothenburg is pretty good, too, especially on top of white wine soup.
Our second course was duck breast braised in red wine sauce. The fat on the duck breast was deliciously crunchy despite the braising. I love duck breast especially when it comes in beautifully fanned out slices, but I was bowled over by the gorgeous side dishes that came with this meal.The first side dish that impressed me was the baked apple half topped with a sweet not tart cranberry sauce that left the fruit intact.
Next came the Bavarian dumpling made from flour. Dumplings are made from flour in southern Germany where the soil is rich. In northern Germany where the soil is poorer, dumplings are made from potatoes. The delicate texture of the dumpling melted in my mouth especially as I used pieces of it to soak up the wine sauce.
Once I finished the braised duck breast and wine, I served myself some braised red cabbage. I thought this would be sour, but instead it was sweet and savory at the same time. I just let it unctuously melt in my mouth. Cabbage cuts the grease in duck and makes it more digestible. There are all sorts of culinary secrets like this in gastronomy, but they take a few decades to learn.
Dessert was a light treat. We ate a rum-laced gelato that topped tart apple sauce. Coffee followed and was served with a small chocolate morsel like they do in all countries with a Germanic influence. This Bavarian meal was equal to and superior to many of the meals that I ate in French restaurants during the seven years that I lived there.
More walking around town ensued with a walk back to the car along the ramparts high above the Tauber River. The day was overcast and the mist rose off the Tauber River just like the sfumato in da Vinci paintings. Rothenburg is Germany’s medieval gem.
By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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