Beyond Bratwurst

A History of Food in Germany

Ursula Heinzelmann

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781780232720
• eBook ISBN: 9781780233024
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Culinary Arts

Thanks to Oktoberfest and the popularity of beer gardens, our thoughts on German food are usually relegated to beer, sausage, pretzels, and limburger cheese. But the inhabitants of modern-day Germany do not live exclusively on bratwurst. Defying popular perception of the meat and potatoes diet, Ursula Heinzelmann's Beyond Bratwurst delves into the history of German cuisine and reveals the country's long history of culinary innovation. Surveying the many traditions that make up German food today, Heinzelmann shows that regional variations of the country's food have not only been marked by geographic and climatic differences between north and south, but also by Germany's political, cultural, and socioeconomic history. She explores the nineteenth century's back-to-the-land movement, which called for people to grow food on their own land for themselves and others, as well as the development of modern mass-market products, rationing and shortages under the Nazis, postwar hunger, and divisions between the East and West. Throughout, she illustrates how Germans have been receptive to influences from the countries around them and frequently reinvented their cuisine, developing a food culture with remarkable flexibility. Telling the story of beer, stollen, rye bread, lebkuchen, and other German favorites, the recipe-packed Beyond Bratwurst will find a place on the shelves of food historians, chefs, and spätzle lovers alike.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction German Food: A Complex Dish
• ONE From Gruel to Sourdough Bread: The Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages
• TWO Fresh Meat and Lac Concretum: The Roman Age, 1st Century BC to 5th Century AD
• THREE Christianity, Social Stratification and Medicine: The Early Middle Ages, 5th to 11th Century
• FOUR Luxurious Feasts and Terrible Famine: The High Middle Ages, 11th to 14th Century
• FIVE Butterbrot and Saffron: The Late Middle Ages, 14th and 15th Centuries
• SIX German Food Writing: The Early Modern Period, 1500 to 1648
• SEVEN Coffee, Sugar and Potatoes, 1648 to 1815
• EIGHT Potatoes without Salt and Soup Kitchens: Pauperism, 1815 to 1871
• NINE Stock Cubes and Baking Powder: The Industrialization of Food, 1871 to 1914
• TEN Hope and Hunger, Vollkornbrot and Swedes, 1914 to 1949
• ELEVEN Kasslerrollen and Toast Hawaii: Post-war Indulgence, East and West, 1949 to 1990
• TWELVE Spaghetti and Rouladen: Regionality in a Globalized World, Reunified Germany since 1990
• References
• Select Bibliography
• Acknowledgements
• Photo Acknowledgements
• Index