Food

To match all tastes and travel budgets, there can be mentioned three big categories of eating opportunities. Budget eateries include takeaways, cafés, snack bars and cheap restaurants (meal around EUR 7 to EUR 10). Full menus, beer and wine lists and table cloths are available in mid-range establishments (3 course menu often for less than EUR 20 p.p.). Top end places are usually full gourmet affairs with perfect service, creative and freshly prepared food and matching wine list that are presented in various courses (around EUR 50 p.p.). Is has to be mentioned that all German restaurants are fully licensed, independent of their size or offer.

Food

The German cuisine is always becoming lighter, healthier and more international. Due to the growing number of foreign inhabitants, the number of foreign restaurants and bars that offer national specialities, grows more and more. During the last years this led Germany to an innovative, wide ranging and tasteful cuisine, including Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and especially Turkish traditional food.
But nevertheless, of course, traditional, regional and national food and drinks are still an important part referring to the choice of food in Germany. This traditional cuisine can be described as a very solid one, combining culinary delicacies with a great variety of beverage.

Main product is definitely bread of all imaginable shapes and sizes: ‘Weissbrot’ is white, ‘Schwarzbrot’ and ‘Vollkornbrot’ are black, while ‘Bauernbrot’ is brown and sour. It is sprinkled with sunflower seeds to get ‘Sonnenblumenbrot’. ‘Bauernbrot’, ‘Roggenbrot’ and ‘Pumpernickel’ are typical rye breads. A traditional breakfast, called Frühstück, consists of bread, topped with butter and jam or cheese, salami and other meat and accompanied with a soft- or hard-boiled egg. Further there are the traditional Brezeln (pretzels), covered in rock salt and consumed with a beer.

The 500 different sausage species make the Wurst (sausage) to a noble and highly respected part in the German cuisine. Commonly served with a slice of bread and a sweet or spicy mustard, you can realize a huge number of different tastes. The ‘Bratwurst’, a generic spiced sausage, certainly is the most famous one and cooked up countrywide. But nevertheless much more sausages, though originating in particular regions, can be tasted throughout Germany. The ‘Blutwurst’ is blood sausage, the ‘Leberwurst’ is liver sausage and a ‘Wiener’ can be compared with the world wide known ‘Frankfurter’. A ‘Thüringer’ is long, thin and spiced, while a ‘Knackwurst’ is lightly tickled with garlic. The Munich’s ‘Weisswurst’, a white veal sausage is often served with ‘Sauerkraut’ (pickled white cabbage). This cabbage of course also can be served with dozens of other standard German menus, too, including ‘Schnitzel’ (a pork, veal or chicken breast pounded flat, coated in egg, dipped in breadcrumbs and pan fried), ‘Eisbein’ (pickled pork knuckles), ‘Leberkäse’ (Liver Cheese, a meat loaf that has nothing to do with cheese or liver), ‘Schweinshax’n’ (knuckles) or ‘Sauerbraten’(marinated and roasted beef swimming in a tangy gravy). More common than pasta and rice are ‘Kartoffeln’ (potatoes). They can be mashed, fried, grated and then fried, chopped into French fries, or served cold in a potato salad. In Baden Württemberg, potatoes are replaced by ‘Spätzle’ (literally “little sparrows”), a sort of pasta. Bavarians and Thuringians both make ‘Klösse’(dumplings).

A wonderful tasty and typical German dessert is the ‘Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte’ that has its roots in the Schwarzwald (Black Forest), a huge creamy cherry gateau, refined with "Kirschwasser” (kirsch), topped with cherries and chocolate chips. Another typical speciality is the ‘Lebkuchen’, the gingerbread from Nuremberg and the ‘Christstollen’ from Dresden, a spiced cake loaded with sultanas, raisins and candied peel. Both are popular during the Christmas time.

Beverage
Bier (beer) and Wein (wine) are Germany’s staple drinks, while Schnapps is the tippler delight, made from fruits or wheat. Coffee is usually served with milk and sugar and often in a new variation, as a fashioned ‘Milchkaffee’ (café latte) containing large amounts of hot milk.

Few countries match Germany beer-wise: be it bottom or top fermented, heavily malted or hoppy, drunk out of a 0.2 l glass or served in a traditional Stein. Demanding by the German ‘Reinheitsgebot’ (purity law), the 1279 German breweries use just four ingredients to brew beer: malt, yeast, hops and water. Their difference is the varying alcoholic content. Low-alcohol beer contains up to 2.8% alcohol, ‘Schankbier’ (draught beer) contains 2.8% to 4.6%, ‘Vollbier’ (literally “full beer”) 4.6% to 5.6% and the potent ‘Starkbier’ (strong beer) is over 5.5% alcohol. Many beers are regional and often consumed in one of the many beer gardens and beer halls. Local drinking culture also can be combined with one of Germany’s many beer festivals, of which the ‘Oktoberfest’ is Europe’s most legendary.

Today, Germany’s vineyards count an area of 100,000 hectares on the Rhine and Moselle riverbanks in southwest Germany. White wine varieties predominate and tend to the medium-dry or sweet rather than dry. The most widely planted grape is the Müller-Thurgau of the Moselle’s south and the Rivaner grape. The reds are light and lesser known. The best one certainly is the Spätburgunder, also known as Pinot Noir.
13 wine-growing regions are spread all over the country. Rheingau and Middle Rhine are known for their ‘Riesling’ grapes, while Germany’s extremely sweet ‘Liebfrauenmilch’ was born in the Rheinhessen, a valley south of Rheingau. The Baden wine region, that runs south from Heidelberg to the northern shore of Lake Constance, produces fine whites, full-bodied and racy ‘Spätburgunder’ reds, as well as the popular ‘Spätburgunder Weissherbst rosé’ wine. Dry earthy wines from around Würzburg in the Franken region are sold in a small green or brown flagon, known as a ‘Bocksbeutel’. In Saale / Unstrut, the northernmost wine area, medium whites and the legendary ‘Rotkäppchen’ (Little Red Riding Hood) sparkling wine can be tasted.