Brot

The Germans and their bread

In Britain, the French baguette and Italian ciabatta now seem to be very much a part of daily life. When I asked an English friend about German bread, his immediate answer was "Are we talking pumpernickel here?" Years ago, when pumpernickel found its way into my local supermarket, I found my first package of this grainy black wholemeal bread from Westphalia there on the shelf with cakes and biscuits. Around the same time I baked some German bread. Or at least I tried to. It proved difficult; for some reason yeast and flour seem to work differently in Britain and in Germany. Anyway, the result gave me some unexpected feedback, as my guests, being offered some of my bread (with butter and jam on it, true to German tradition) thanked me afterwards for "the nice cake".

There is a bit more to German bread than just pumpernickel. First of all, bread is absolutely fundamental to the daily diet. Statistics show that the German daily intake of bread exceeds by far the bread consumption of people in any other EU member country. Sounds like a bit of a boring diet, you may think. It becomes a bit less boring when you imagine that there are more than 300 different varieties of bread around Germany, and that does not even include all the regional variations. It comes in all sorts of forms and shapes –and most importantly – tastes! The distinctive taste of the bread itself is a matter of great consideration.

Most German bread varieties are so called Mischbrote (mixed breads). There are lots of different Weizenmischbrote (wheat-based breads), preferred for a typical German breakfast, and Roggenmischbrote (rye-based ones), more eaten in the evening. The role of bread in the German diet has in fact formed mealtime habits. A German supper not only traditionally consists of different bread varieties, cold meats and cheeses, but it is also named accordingly: Abendbrot –Abend –translates as 'evening', and brot is German for 'bread'. A traditional German breakfast offers fresh crusty rolls with jam for those with a sweet taste, and a variety of breads, together with thinly-sliced cheese and cold meat, to provide for more savoury tastes. Again, it is as much the taste of the bread itself that counts as what you put on it. The Butterbrot, which was originally just a slice of bread with butter, cut in half and folded, now might have cheese and cold meat on it, but it is still quite different from an English or American sandwich. While in such a sandwich the bread is merely being used as a 'holder' for all the fancy stuff inside it, the taste of the Butterbrot is created by the hearty taste of the bread itself, which complements the taste of the cheese or meat.

There is even a website devoted to the Butterbrot. (http://www.butterbrot.de/index.html), and a 'Museum of Bread Culture' in the city of Ulm in Germany (http://www.brotmuseum-ulm.de/museumen/index.html). But when you next visit Germany, be sure to spend time at your local Bäckerei. It's not a museum but it will certainly be a cultural experience.