Like Berlin, Hamburg doesn’t rate too highly when considering international gastronomic destinations. This is also a fair designation, but it’s worth noting that not only is it’s cuisine significantly different from that of the adjoining Prussian sphere, it’s situated in another milieu entirely. Unlike Berlin, which was the seat of an empire but never a vital trade crossroads, Hamburg is one of two (formerly three) independently governed German city-states, all of whom operated as dynamic medieval trade nodes, creating a far more cosmopolitan character overall. Along with Bremen (and their former partner Lübeck) they were anchors of the vaunted Hanseatic League, a continent-spanning guild that for centuries dominated international commerce throughout the North and Baltic Seas.
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It seems like American chip flavors just keep getting crazier, with each trip to the grocery store yielding a rogue’s gallery of strange new monstrosities. But this craziness is also circumscribed, pushed toward ever more extreme, overdriven concoctions, mash-ups and combinations, as well as eerily faithful reenactments of foods that have no business existing as chips. On the fast-food side of this equation, Pizza Hut has recently launched the latest attempt at challenging the Doritos Locos Taco. This hulking abomination expands the humble Cheez-It to mammoth proportions. A Cheez-It is obviously not a chip, but it's pizza-fied offspring (the end-result of years of desperate promiscuity by Sunshine, a company that needs to realize the inherent perfection of its star product and stick with it) is so wrongheaded, and so representative of the grotesquerie which defines the current state of processed food culture, that I would be remiss not to mention it. I should also mention that Extra Toasty Cheez-Its are a godsend, and almost singlehandedly balance out the damage inflicted by the last 15 years of lab-spawned, misbegotten oddities.
In April I made an expedition to two locations which, while notable destinations in their own right, are not particularly famous for their food. Yet far from providing a shortage of gustatory stimulation, I've learned that trips like this often allow for a finer focus, both on specific local pleasures, and less likely ones that have filtered in from abroad. The second stop (saved for the next post) was the Netherlands, whose national cuisine benefits from fresh produce and dairy (thanks to ultra-modern farming practices) but whose flavors seem wan next to that of its former colonial holdings. The first is Berlin, a banner city for the famously rich gastronomic quilt that is Germany, but also one that sits on its fringes, marked by the staid cold-weather fare of the former Prussian empire. The city’s biggest culinary champion is probably currywurst, the rare dish that somehow manages a decrease in the quality of the run-of-the-mill German sausage.
At some point recently (likely while sipping a digestif) I realized that these murky, viscous brews are actually just medicine, or at least sprung from the same fundamental tradition stretching from salutatory medieval herb concoctions to modern cough syrup. Both ends of this historical continuum seek to treat bodily ills through bracing infusions of boozy goo; one is natural, packed with plants and herbs, while the other has departed from the proud historical practice of healing-through-inebriation by embracing chemical compounds aimed exclusively at treating specific ailments. Yet just as these antique brews were/are often used for things other than strict healing, these modern-day equivalents can still be easily tipped over into the realm of pure intoxication.
My journey here starts with the above-pictured Underberg, a favored digestive aid since 1846, sprung from this same medicinal tradition. It's also part of the larger general family known as Kräuterlikör, a class of after-dinner drinks which, thanks to the work of herbalists like Hildegard of Bingen, allows you to quaff deep drafts of what’s essentially condensed forest juice, locally sourced from some of Europe’s most interesting old-growth woods. You can also settle for blindly downing too many shots of Jagermeister (the most famous, if not greatest, contemporary Kräuterlikör) and giving yourself a massive sugar-induced hangover the next day. There's something innately disturbing about the short memory of popular culture, the impetuous hastiness with which celebrated things can be completely and utterly forgotten, a reminder that most people’s legacies don’t extend too far beyond their lifespans. So while it’s nice to imagine we have an adequate picture of what life was like 50 or 60 years ago, a sampling of hit movies and TV shows, icons and stars, fashions and trends, there’s really a huge amount of now-vanished information which leaves this image incomplete. Take for example Bob, Rose and Cora Brown, a by-all-accounts moderately famous husband, wife and mother team of food explorers, who wrote several impressive tomes on the joys of adventurous eating. All of these are now out of print, and the Browns can no longer even boast a Wikipedia entry to their name. Bob, the trio’s de facto leader (if only by virtue of having lived the longest and wrote the most) still has a few scant clippings accessible, including this 2010 NYTimes piece, which seems to completely misinterpret an obvious joke about an idea for an automated reading machine. This disappearance is a shame, since the Browns’ gourmand legacy, the concept of combing the globe for new flavors rather than clinging to the comfortable tastes of home, seems especially relevant today.
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The coded language of snacks, sandwiches and seasonings, in NYC and beyond.
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