German Celery Root Economics by Ruth Paget

German Celery Root Economics by Ruth Paget 

I have to admit that when I first saw sellerieknolle, celery root, in a grocery store outside Stuttgart (Germany) when I lived there for five years, my first thought was “Ew. What is this?” as I turned one over in my hand. 

Celery root looks like a bulbous turnip with splotchy brown skin. I did not buy it, but looked it up on various health sites at home and saw that celery root is rich in fiber; vitamins B6, C, and K; has several antioxidants that help remove free radicals that may cause cancer; and has significant amounts of phosphorous, potassium, and manganese. I read that its flavor is mild, has white flesh, and can be used like a potato when peeled. Celery root is also inexpensive – definitely a great value for what is in it.

Next trip to the Edeka grocery store, I bought celery root and put it in soup that I puréed with an immersion blender. I also ate it as part of restaurant meals during our stay in Germany. Recently, I found some German recipes using celery root in a Kindle cookbook called Hello! 365 Celery Recipes by Ms. Fruit for .99 cents. My favorite German recipes from this book follow: 

 Bayerische Schweinbraten (Bavarian Pork Roast): I first ate this meal in the town of Eschenbach outside the US military base in Vilseck (Germany) close to the Czech Republic border. The roast goes very well with Czech Pilsner Urquell beer. 

The recipe in the book calls for mixing mustard with seasonings like paprika and caraway seeds and spreading this mixture over the pork before browning it on all sides. Then, you sauté onions, celeriac , and carrots in the frying pan you used to brown the pork roast before adding them to the pork along with some water. 

You bake the pork roast for 2 ½ to 3 hours and make gravy with the baking juices and puréed vegetables, if you would like The result is fork tender. The pork roast I ate in Eschenbach came with sweet braised red cabbage and two large dumplings. I loved being able to eat a Bavarian Sunday lunch in Germany and having the recipe to recreate this delicious large family dish here in California. 

In Stuttgart, I did more mundane dishes with celery root like celery root and potato purée, which the cookbook makes with the addition of cream after boiling the vegetables. I add butter to this dish and cream, because fat helps ward off cold weather as I learned during my Michigan upbringing. 

Another winning recipe from this cookbook is Chef John’s Root Vegetable Gratin. A German secret is to sauté vegetables before putting into bake in a gratin. Chef John’s recipe calls for potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, celery root, and parsnips flavored with garlic, butter, chicken broth, cream, and Parmesan cheese. 

There is also a great recipe for Creamy German Potato Soup made with onions, carrots, celeriac, tomatoes, and potatoes that is blended till smooth with an immersion blender. 

Finally, a popular vorspeisen, appetizer, is made with celery root, onion, vinegar, sugar, and rapeseed oil. This simple recipe tastes perky all year round. I often ate this salad before eating pork medallion meals in restaurants. 

I would wholeheartedly say that Hello! 365 Celery Recipes by Ms. Fruit on Kindle for .99 cents is a terrific buy. Economical celery has multiple uses in many cultures, which Ms. Fruit documents well. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Prime Pork Chop Dinner at Pub's Prime Rib in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Prime Pork Chop Dinner at Pub’s Prime Rib in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

One of the best times of year to order a pork chop meal at a locals’ favorite restaurant like Pub’s Prime Rib in Salinas, California is October when the weather turns from very hot to very cool. 

This is the time when areas with strong animal husbandry traditions separate the spare, weaker hogs and cattle for slaughter from the animals that will be kept for breeding over winter. What this means for the consumer is the abundance of pork products in fall like brats, sausage, bacon, and pork chops. One classic example of how this seasonal abundance was used in Germany is the Munich Oktoberfest, which was started to celebrate a wedding with many guests. 

Pork chops made from freshly killed hogs are very tender and some say more flavorful than pork that is preserved in various forms to last throughout the winter. What is true for hogs is traditionally true for cattle as well. 

With that backstory told to my family, my husband Laurent, our daughter Florence Paget, and I set out for a delicious meal at Pub’s Prime Rib downtown. Pub’s was established in the 1940s, and I like to think that John Steinbeck ate there. 

Our favorite family writer, Florence Paget, and her dad began their meals with French onion soup that was full of savory onions with gruyère cheese melted over the top of the bowl and down the sides just like you see in French cookbooks. It was a golden delicious stew. 

I started my meal with a wedge salad made with cold and crunchy iceberg lettuce with lightly salted blue cheese dressing, chopped fried bacon, and chopped, succulent tomatoes from the blistering hot summer even in Monterey County. I like this salad, because it is a nice contrast in texture, taste, and cooking method – raw. Good appetizers are supposed to contrast in this way with a main dish. 

For our main dishes, Florence had the prime rib with baked potatoes and vegetables. Laurent had lobster ravioli. Both of these dishes came with a large dinner salad beforehand. Laurent ordered seafood in a month with an “r” in it, which the French say are good months for seafood due to colder water. Florence was getting prime rib from freshly killed October cattle. 

I ordered the pork chop dinner, which I considered a German hauptgeriichte, or main dish from elite cuisine: 

 -a one-inch thick, large pork chop that came with caramelized apples, roasted baby potatoes, and sautéed spinach in a rosemary-mustard red wine sauce. 

The pork chop was easy to cut and the lovely side dishes filled me up, so I did not order dessert, but the crème brulée and New York Cheesecake both looked tempting. 

Pub’s Prime Rib in Salinas, California is a cozy place for dinner with a full bar in front and a good choice of meat and seafood dinners. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

3-Course Vegetarian Lunch at Alvarado on Main Brew Pub in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

3-Course Vegetarian Lunch at Alvarado Main Brew Pub in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

Alvarado on Main Brew Pub in Salinas, California is well known for entrées like wagyu smash burgers and salmon yakisoba, but you can also eat a three-course vegetarian meal here with regular menu items. 

Market day on Saturday mornings is an especially good time for a vegetarian lunch at Alvarado on Main. The market begins in front of the brewpub, but you can park in the nearby garage by the Steinbeck Center, which is just two blocks away on Main Street. 

The day my daughter Florence Paget, husband Laurent, and I went to lunch, we began our meal with crispy, long pretzels that came with warm bar cheese for dipping. Lacto-ovo vegetarians eat dairy and eggs, so this was a great vegetarian beginning for market day lunch. 

I ordered blackberry-burrata salad as my main dish. Burrata cheese comes from Apulia (also known as Puglia) Italy, which is located in the heel of Italy’s boot-shaped peninsula on Italy’s eastern coast by the Adriatic Sea. It is served as a large disc of milky white cow’s cheese with a thick soft layer of edible crust surrounding a creamy interior. 

Alvarado on Main inserts blackberries into the creamy interior of the burrata cheese from the bottom of the burrata. The cheese is placed in the center of a large bowl of baby spinach leaves that have been mixed with sautéed shallots. Blackberry halves were scattered around the burrata on top of the baby spinach and shallots. 

The salad was so beautiful to look at that I kept rearranging it for artistic presentation each time I took a delicious bit. Blackberries and burrata cheese could be a dessert on their own. The crunchy spinach leaves and salty shallots added to the surprising and pleasing sweetness of this dish. I think an iced tea would be perfect with the blackberry-burrata salad. 

I shared a vegetarian and antioxidant dessert with Laurent – a stout brownie with pineapple ice cream. Stout here refers to a brownie made with a frothy and chocolaty beer. Adding beer to a brownie recipe makes the brownies very moist. 

The brownie we ate had a pronounced chocolate flavor, which makes me think it was made with bitter baking chocolate, which is a strong antioxidant. 

This already great dessert came with whipped cream and caramelized slices of fresh pineapple that were sautéed in butter and brown sugar and candied shavings of coconut. 

That glorious dessert was also vegetarian. It was high-calorie, but worth the off-diet delight. The stout brownie would be great with coffee alone as a “sugar meal” as the Austrians say. 

This delicious vegetarian meal is a winner that you can order everyday from the regular menu at Alvarado on Main brewpub in Salinas, California. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Dijon: The Mustard Society Game by Ruth Paget

Dijon: The Mustard Society Game by Ruth Paget 

Number of Players: 

Unlimited as long as the mustard lasts 

Materials Needed: All the materials you need for this game can be ordered from the Mustard Museum in Wisconsin (mustardmuseum.com). 

-3 different kinds of mustard 

-pretzel sticks Game 

Preparation: 

-On a sheet of paper, note the name of the three different mustards with a line after it where players will note a number of a matching mystery mustard. Make copies of this game sheet for the number of guests coming to your game 

-Put out a dish with many pretzels so people dip once to avoid double dipping and germ spreading -cover the jars with paper so you cannot see the labels. Number them 1 – 3. 

Game Play: 

-Each guest will use one pretzel stick per mustard jar to scoop out a taste. -Guests will discuss mustards and note on their game sheet what mustard they think the mystery mustards are. 

-Take the white paper of each jar to reveal the mystery mustard. 

Everyone is a winner if you set all the mustards out to go with brats, hot dogs, or kielbasa and potato salad, coleslaw, and chips. 

People who got everything right can take a jar of mustard home, if there is any left. 

Mustards you can order from the Mustard Museum in Wisconsin include: 

-Colman’s Original English 

-Bornier Original Dijon 

-De Echte Zaanse Mustard 

-Löwensenf Bavarian 

-Lakeshore Wholegrain with Irish Whiskey 

-Bacik Spicy Horseradish and Honey 

-Amora 

-Clovis Herbes de Provence 

-Edmond Fallon Honey 

-Delicious Gourmet Big Easy Cajun 

-Pommery Moutarde de Meaux 

-Inglehoffer Sriracha 

-Kocsiusko Spicy Brown Mustard 

-Australian Outback Mustard 

-Baumgarten Horseradish Mustard 

-Löwensenf Extra Hot 

-Sierra Nevada Stout and Stone Ground 

The Mustard Museum has an online catalog that you can request to make unique parties with society games. 

Happy Gaming! 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France 

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany by Ruth Paget

Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany by Ruth Paget 

Stuttgart is Germany’s richest city. Mercedes-Benz and Porsche cars are manufactured here. The city is surrounded by Riesling vineyards. The city’s cash flow is also assured as the home of reasonably priced Ritter-Sport chocolate. 

One of Stuttgart’s star attractions is the Porsche Museum. My husband Laurent and I decided to visit it and contribute to the local economy when we lived in Stuttgart for five years. 

I felt like Laurent was getting to do something he liked as one of our cultural outings. We usually visit lots of castle kitchens and monasteries with pre-Columbian vegetable gardens. I like studying medieval household management, but do recognize that cars make modern life nice, especially in the Western United States. 

We drove our GM product to the Porsche Museum, and had fun walking around the red, white, and yellow race cars in the gleaming white museum. 

Germans make great merchandise, so we headed to the gift shop to make some purchases. We bought USB ports for our computers that had model Porsche cars on their ends and looked through T-shirts, caps cups, and decks of cards with Porsche models as jacks, queens, and kings. 

I thought the T-shirts were informal surveys to see which Porsche models might sell well. 

At home, I made shrimp kebabs with shrimp I had marinated in lemon juice and crushed garlic overnight. 

We ate chic Weihenstephan yogurt as dessert. Weihenstephan is better known for its beer. The monastery brewery was founded in 1040 and has a limited number of other food products for sale in Germany. 

To finish off our meal, we drank smooth Dallmayr coffee from the department store of the same name in Munich. 

I thought the lunch was something a trim and well-off German might like. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Donaueschingen, Germany Trip by Ruth Paget

Donaueschingen, Germany Trip by Ruth Paget 

I first read about the German Black Forest town of Donaueschingen, the source of the Danube River, in Marina Polvay’s cookbook All Along the Danube: Recipes from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria (Hippocrene Press – 357 pages). 

When I moved to Stuttgart, Germany with my husband Laurent for five years, we lived close to the Black Forest and made Donaueschingen one of our first trips. We drove through the Black Forest with its gingerbread architecture towns and shops selling cuckoo clocks and beer steins and ended up with those items before returning to the United States. 

On our walk to the source of the Danube River once in Donaueschingen, we passed churches and apartment buildings painted in pastel colors like Venice that would shine in the snowy winters here and constantly remind inhabitants of their connection to water. 

The two streams that come together as the source of the Danube River are the Brege and Brigach. They are encircled in a fountain with an Art Nouveau metal railing. People toss Euro coins in the fountain. I wondered if they ended up downriver in Budapest, Hungary or it the German civic authorities gathered them up for fountain maintenance. 

There are many pack terrace cafés in town that no doubt serve dishes made with mushrooms from the Black Forest like trout in mushroom-butter sauce. 

I treated our time in Germany as one long cooking course, so we returned home where I had a salad waiting that I made from Marina Polvay’s All Along the Danube. The rough outline for the salad I made follows. (I noted the page with the exact recipe.) 

Mushroom-Potato Salad (p.16) 

-slice mushrooms and marinate in vinegar and oil dressing 

-toss mushrooms with slices of boiled potatoes 

-garnish with slices of green pepper and capers 

This salad served at room temperature is especially good with a chilled Pilsner beer on a cool Fall day. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

German Culture Introduction by Ruth Paget

German Culture Introduction by Ruth Paget 

I lived in Stuttgart, Germany by the Black Forest for several years in the mid-2000s and began studying German culture with many wonderful books there. The books, films, and audio programs about German culture below might interest Americans with German ancestorS, especially if planning a trip to Germany.

German Art 

-Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Arts from 1350 to 1575 by James Snyder 

-Durer (Art and Ideas) by Jeffrey Chipps Smith 

This book is particularly good at showing how to promote his artwork and how to work with commission agents.  

German Travel Guide  

-Germany for Travelers by The Total Guide 

German and Austrian Wine 

-The Wines of Germany by Anne Kreblehl 

-The Wines of Austria by Stephen Brook 

Austrian wines are not German ones, but they pair well with German food. They are becoming available overseas now. 

Beer Book 

The Complete Beer Course: Boot Camp for Beer Geeks: From Novice to Expert in Twelve Tasting Classes by Joshua M. Bernstein 

German Cookbooks 

-The New German Cookbook: More than 230 Contemporary and Traditional Recipes by Jean Anderson and Hedy Wurz

-The German Cookbook: A Complete Guide to Mastering Authentic German Cooking by Mimi Sheraton -

-Festive Baking: Holiday Classics in the Swiss, German, and Austrian Traditions by Sarah Kelly Lala and Bonni Leon

German Customs 

-Germany – Culture Smart: The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture by Barry Tomlin 

Films 

-Metropolis Directed by Fritz Lang

-Good-bye Lenin! Directed by Wolfgang Becker 

Comedy about the reunification of Germany 

German Genealogy 

 -Trace Your German Roots Online: A Complete Guide to German Genealogy Websites by James M. Belder 

Contemporary German Music  

-20th Century Masters: The Best of Scorpions Millemium Collection

-Pink Floyd

Literature 

-Goethe by Faust

-Grimm's Fairy Tales

Language  

-Rosetta Stone Learn German Bonus Pack Bundle by Rosetta Stone 

Germany Map

-Michelin Germany Map

By Ruth Paget, author of Marring France and Eating Soup with Chopsticks

Ruth Paget Photo

Stuttgart Smoked Salmon Salad Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Stuttgart Smoked Salmon Salad Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

When I lived in Stuttgart, Germany for five years, I invented several dishes to deal with hot, humid summers that also tasted good during brisk winter months.

One of my favorite creations is very easy to make.  I call it Stuttgart Smoked Salmon Salad.

The quick recipe follows:

-Mesclun salad mix from Edeka Supermarkets in Germany or Whole Foods in the US

-Sliced hardboiled eggs

-Scottish smoked salmon cut up into squares (Scottish smoked salmon is pink rather than bright orange.)

Steps:

1 – Place a mound of mesclun in a serving bowl

2 – Place sliced hard boiled eggs around the edges

3 – Place smoked salmon squares in the middle of the salad

Serve with a chilled, creamy dressing.

The photo below shows how I present it.

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Click for Laurent Paget's Book

Ruth Paget Photograph

Using Google Translate to Learn Languages by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Using Google Translate to Learn Languages by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I do have some tips for learning how to listen and respond and ask questions in German that I used when I lived there.  This is not all there is to learning another language obviously, but many students memorize rote dialogs that fail them when they are in real life situations.

I did not have a German class when I was in Germany and all of my neighbors in Stuttgart were Italian or Croatian.  So, I devised a method for learning how to speak German using Google Translate and its microphone function.

Basically, I would write out a question I needed to have an answer to and brainstormed several responses.  I would type the questions and responses into Google Translate one by one and write out the German sentence.  Then, I would get the pronunciation from the Google Translate microphone and practice saying the questions and responses.

I used this method to develop questions and responses for the following 31 real-life situations:

1 – making reservations at a restaurant by telephone

2 – listening to see if a plane, train, bus, or boat is late or has changed gates and asking to verify if you have correctly understood

3 – making and canceling appointments by phone at the doctor, dentist, manicurist, and hair stylist

4 – ordering in a fast food restaurant (very high pressure situation)

5 –ordering at a restaurant

6 – buying train and bus tickets

7 – ordering items in a grocery store such as fish, cheese, and deli items (getting a store advertising newsletter helps with food and drink vocabulary)

8 – getting gas at a gas station

9 – asking for directions

10 – listening to weather broadcasts and asking about the weather

11- asking to set up a post office box in Germany

12 – asking to open up a bank account

13 – calling emergency services to report a problem

14 – describing medical conditions

15 – asking for a floor on an elevator

16 – taking a phone message

17 – asking for items at a pharmacy

18 – describing what you want at a clothing store

19 – getting a cab and giving your home address and preferred route home

20 – buying movie tickets

21 – changing airline reservations

22 – making airline reservations and cancellations

23 – asking where items are in a grocery store

24 – ordering items at a bakery

25 – asking for a restaurant bill

26 – asking for a wi – fi code and/or password

27 – asking where the bathroom is

28 – ordering a drink in a restaurant or bar

29 – asking for items at an outdoor market

30 – making arrangements for service people to come to your home by phone such as plumbers, electricians, and painters

31 – ordering items at a butcher

I used this method to learn to speak Spanish, when I was a youth services librarian in California as well, so I knew it would work with German as well when I lived there for five years.

If you have a language-learning partner, you can role-play these situations and think of how to generate vocabulary for more extensive conversations.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Click for Laurent Paget's Book

Ruth Paget Selfie

German Appetizers and Soups by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring German Culture through Appetizers and Soups by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

When I went to live in Stuttgart (Germany) for five years, I was worried about what I would eat.  I knew about brats and Christmas cookies, but knew I could not subsist on those food items alone.

I read and bought German cookbooks before I left, so I could order German foods in restaurants and know what they were and buy ingredients for cooking at home.

I bought The New German Cookbook by Jean Anderson and Hedy Würz before going to Germany, because they had dishes from the Baden-Würtemberg state where Stuttgart is located.

The dishes from this region are sold in deli departments of supermarkets and in independent delis called “feinkosts.”  I learned how to ask for food items in both places in Germany in hochdeutsch, university – level German - not dialect.

Many appetizers and soups are sold in German bars and made from a mix of fresh food and bottled items traded by the ancient Hanseatic cities such as Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen. 

German bread is excellent and goes well with spreads like Liptauer cheese.  The Germans brag that they have a bread for each day of the year like the French have a cheese for every day of the year.

The New German Cookbook has 230 recipes, including many for appetizers and soup.  Knowing about the following recipes made it easier for me to live in a country that I did not know much about when I first went to live there. 

The cookbook provides the details, but I will provide the enticements to look up the recipes that Anderson and Würz developed, tested, and verified before publication:

Appetizers

-smoked salmon tartare with black caviar

-tiny potato pancakes with black caviar

-herring salad with apples, dill, pickles, and horseradish

-herring salad with potatoes, apples, hard-boiled eggs, onions, dill, peppers, mayonnaise, and yogurt

-rollmops – brined herring salad – hangover cure after Carnival

-herring in sour cream, onions, apples, cream, vinegar, mustard, and red pepper

-shrimp salad – shrimp with hard-boiled egg, green peas, and a dressing made with Dijon mustard, heavy cream, and lemon juice

-Liptauer cheese made with yellow onion, butter, cream cheese, Camembert, sour cream, plain yogurt, and Hungarian paprika

For a group of 6 people, 4 or 5 of the above appetizers with an individual bowl of a soup listed below with bread would be a nice meal for a brew pub where a house beer is brewed on the premises.

The New German Cookbook has detailed recipes for these delicious soups.  I tried many of them when I lived in Stuttgart, Germany for five years:

-beef broth with dumplings

-pancake soup – uses leftover pancake strips in the soup

-Maultaschen Suppe with Swabian spinach-and-meat stuffed ravioli

-Goulash – Hungarian beef stew flavored with sweet Hungarian paprika

-Pheasant with lentil soup

-Asparagus with rice soup

-Fennel with bacon soup

-Kale soup

There are more soups listed in The New German Cookbook.  I like this cookbook, because it uses many ingredients that you can easily find in American supermarkets with the exception of herrings. 

Those sour fish bites are good once in awhile, though.  Maybe we could make them easier to obtain in colder parts of the US.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie